If you’ve never heard of Charles Jouffre, it’s probably because you’re not a movie star or a head of state. Ateliers Charles Jouffre, based in Lyon, creates the luscious interiors of iconic establishments such as the Crillon hotel in Paris and the Four Seasons in NY. Plus a few French government buildings, like the Palais de l’Élysée… More photos at Maison.com.
If you live in NY, Ateliers Charles Jouffre is participating in this year’s Kips Bay Decorator Show House fundraising event for the Boys and Girls Clubs. Charles Jouffre is represented in the room called the “Sensual Playground” (above photo by Marco Ricca). Ateliers Charles Jouffre contributed the upholstered walls and fabric wrapped moldings to this room designed by Shawn Henderson. Don’t miss a chance to see real luxury up close and personal!
It’s your lucky day, America! California has imported a French chocolatier who used to be high on the food chain (so to speak) at Lenôtre. Now he’s launched Nuubia Chocolat, his own line of gourmet French-style chocolates in the Bay Area. Nuubia Chocolat was voted one of the Top Ten Chocolatiers in North America, and named Chocolatier of the Year in 2011.
That’s all fine and dandy, but what really works for me is the eco aspect. The company uses NO palm oil or palm oil derivatives. (In case you didn’t know, palm oil is in about 50% of the packaged products we use, and it’s driving the orangutan to extinction.)
Nuubia Chocolat’s mission is to “produce exquisite chocolates and protect the planet”:
Because of our connection to the Earth, Nuubia Chocolat’s underlying mission is dedicated to help protect life on this planet and wildlife sanctuaries around the globe. Our Company is driven by “B” Corporation principles, using only GMO-free ingredients, FSC certified papers and packaging, and subscribing to standards that incorporate ethics and transparency into our daily business practices.
If you live in the area, you can visit their store in Pleasanton, where they even offer classes! If not, you can order online. Bon appétit !
On the Hermès site right now, you can download PDF patterns for six versions of the dog collar bracelet to print and make yourself. Just go to the Hermès site, click Travel the world of Hermès, and choose Surprises from the menu (vertical orange bar, top left). Note that different country sites might have different versions!!
If you don’t find them, or if they take them down (they don’t stay up there forever, ladies!), you can get them here.
On the Hermès site right now, you can download PDF patterns for six versions of the Jigé clasp clutch to print and make yourself. Just go to the Hermès site, click Travel the world of Hermès, and choose Surprises from the menu (vertical orange bar, top left). Note that different country sites might have different versions!!
As with the other Hermès goodies we’ve posted, if you don’t find them, or if they take them down, you can get them here.
We can’t get enough of this ad. It’s the iconic beauties so seamlessly CGI’d into it and the kick ass song Heavy Cross by Gossip. And Charlize is liquid gold on legs, of course. Directed by Oscar-winning French director Jean-Jacques Annaud.
The Mullin Automotive Museum, a Southern California institution dedicated to the preservation of French Art Deco era art and automobiles, announced today that its latest book, French Curves: Delahaye ∙ Delage ∙ Talbot-Lago, will be unveiled to the public this August at the 2011 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.
We covered the first volume in this series, The Art of Bugatti, here. French Curves is the second volume, and you can buy them both directly from the publisher. If you ask, you can get them signed by author Michael Furman too!
The work of Serge Gainsbourg, the large-nosed, Gitanes-smoking French icon whose jazzy, bohemian songs exemplified a sexually liberated France of the 1960s and 1970s, is enjoying a resurgence in the most unlikely of places — perfume ads.
“I own 100 percent of everything that I need. I can drink my own wine, go to my own theatre, eat in my own restaurants, sleep in my hotels on my own sheets, dress in my own clothes and use my own perfume,” Cardin once said.
Read the rest at AFP. Image and French article at L’Express.
Spiders and robots? We were bored till the last “character” appeared in a shirt made of different rouges, a frilly skirt, a cigarette holder… We liked her.
Seems Dior likes to hire prominent directors and stars to make mini-movie “ads” for their products, like they did with David Lynch and Marion Cotillard. Watch this one for Dior Homme cologne filmed in Paris and featuring Exogenesis Symphony Part 1, by Muse.
The family shareholders of the French luxury goods maker Hermès will hold crisis talks tomorrow to discuss how to defend themselves against a potential takeover by the rival conglomerate LVMH.
Chanel No. 5, the perfume synonymous with Francophile luxury and celebrity decadence, was not always — oo la la! — from France.
While World War II raged in Europe, the perfume factory was moved to, of all places, New Jersey, according to a new book, “The Secret History of Chanel No. 5.”
Marilyn Monroe said she slept in nothing but Chanel N° 5… Buy some N° 5 at the Francophilia Amazon Store.
TheArt of Bugatti is about upper-crust living in France before WWII, complete with chateaux, gentlemen zoo-keepers with a penchant for the exotic, morose artist brothers and bohemian undercurrents.
According to Lynch, the only direction he had from Dior was, “They called me up and said, ‘Would you like to make a short film for the internet? You can do anything you want, you just need to show the handbag, the Pearl Tower and some old Shanghai.’”
In latest news, the eight pigs tattooed with Louis Vuitton logoes and other Walt Disney characters — highly controversial works of art by Belgian artist Wim Delvoye — has been banned by the organisers of SHContemporary, the city’s largest contemporary art fair.
