Category Archives: Paris popular culture

Nostalgic images of a vanishing city

Posted on February 25, 2018 by Parisian Fields

Photographs of Paris in the snow were big news earlier this month. We are Canadians. As Gilles Vigneault sang of this country, “Mon pays ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver” (My country is not a country, it is winter). … Continue reading →

Posted in Paris art, Paris nostalgia, Paris popular culture, Paris streets | Tagged commissionnaire, Curiosités de Paris, Edmond Morin, Franco-Prussian War, Grand Café d’Harcourt, Henri Boutet, Le Monde illustré, Neuvaine de Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, Neuvaine de Sainte Geneviève, omnibus, Serge Férat | 12 Comments

Voutch and the evolution of a cartoon style

Posted on June 19, 2016 by Parisian Fields

You know how it is: you notice something properly for the first time, and for the next while, you see it everywhere. So it was with us and the cartoons of Voutch (real name: Olivier Chapougnot). We had wandered along the … Continue reading →

Posted in Paris art, Paris popular culture, Paris postcards | Tagged boomerang, Credit du Nord, Dominque Fertil, Editions Cherche-Midi, Galerie Dominique, Le Monde, Librairie Les Traversées, Madame Figaro, Olivier Chapougnot, Olivier Vouktchevitch, Psychologies, This is as Bad as it Gets, Voutch | 9 Comments

Getting married in the City of Light

Posted on March 27, 2016 by Parisian Fields

Many people dream of getting married in Paris. How romantic. How fashionable. Like this 1998 image of a Christian Dior wedding gown on a beautiful model, a Paris wedding seems like a dream too good to be true. The fantasy element appears … Continue reading →

Posted in Paris history, Paris popular culture | Tagged Le Petit Journal, marriage, Montmartre, Paris en Images, weddings | 5 Comments

Enough to make a cow laugh

Posted on January 4, 2015 by Parisian Fields

New Year’s is a time of cleaning up and clearing out, and to that end I have unsubscribed from all kinds of newsletters and mass mailings to keep my head clear and my inbox manageable. But I’m keeping a few, … Continue reading →

Posted in Paris food, Paris history, Paris popular culture | Tagged Benjamin Rabier, Beziers, Bibliothèque nationale de France, BnF, Galerie Georges Petit, Gallica, Gillian Tindall, gruyère, La Revue Politique et Littéraire, La sardine francaise, La vache qui rit, laughing cow, Léon Bel, Les Ambassadeurs, Musee de l'illustration jeunesse, Ravitaillement en Viande Fraîche, Vachkyrie, Wachkyrie | 10 Comments

First we take Manhattan, then we take Paree!

Posted on December 14, 2014 by Parisian Fields

I bought my first Eloise book from a secondhand bookstall at school when I was 9 or 10. It was Kay Thompson’s Eloise in Moscow, and I was captivated by Hilary Knight’s illustrations, including a fold-out view of a wintry … Continue reading →

Posted in Paris popular culture, Paris travel | Tagged Andy Williams, Audrey Hepburn, Eloise in Paris, Fouquet's, Fred Astaire, Funny Face, Hilary Knight, Kay Thompson, Librairie Académique Perrin, Quai des Grands Augustins, Relais Bisson, Renault Dauphine, Sabena | 15 Comments

Paris in the year 2000, viewed from 1900

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Parisian Fields

It seems that humans cannot resist dabbling in predicting the future. We have an innate need to ignore Yogi Berra’s clear warning, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” So what did the year 2000 look like from a … Continue reading →

Posted in Paris art, Paris popular culture | Tagged Albert Robida, Armand Gervais, Editions Renaud, En l'an 2000, Futuredays, Isaac Asimov, Jean-Marc Côté, Mariea Asimov, Public Domain Review | 12 Comments

The scavengers

Posted on August 10, 2014 by Parisian Fields

Major nineteenth-century cities such as Paris or London depended on complex ecosystems in which the showiest sometimes obscured underlying layers. Consider a city in which by 1900 it was said that as many as 300,000 cigars (perhaps the number included … Continue reading →

Posted in Paris history, Paris popular culture | Tagged cigarettes, cigars, Edmond Texier, Gustave Macé, Jacques Boyer, Jean-Michel Le Corfec, La Seine à Travers Paris, Les petits métiers, Louis Vert, Place Maubert, Saint-Juirs | 7 Comments

The Jardin Mabille and the origins of the can-can

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Parisian Fields

Paris has long been famous for dance, and not just the glamour of the ballet. The city was renowned for its bals (places and events for dancing). At one end of the social scale were the elaborate invitation-only affairs in … Continue reading →

Posted in Paris dance, Paris history, Paris popular culture | Tagged Ball Mabille, baron haussmann, can-can, David Ross Locke, George Augustus Sala, gobemouche, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Jardin Mabille, John Russell Young, Petroleum V. Nasby, Ulysses S. Grant | 8 Comments

Lost (and found) in translation

Posted on September 2, 2012 by Parisian Fields

Among the pitfalls in learning French are what is known as “faux amis” (false friends) – that is, words that sound as if they ought to mean the same thing in English and French, but don’t. Like librairie, which is … Continue reading →

Posted in Paris popular culture | Tagged Compound Fractured French, flea markets in toronto, Fractured French, Fred Pearson 2nd, homophonic translation, Luis d’Antin Van Rooten, Mots D’heures Gousses Rames, N’Heures Souris Rames, New Yorker, Ormonde de Kay, Richard Taylor, Rouben Mamoulian | 9 Comments

Everyday Hats of Paris

Posted on August 19, 2012 by Parisian Fields

While there is a Paris of high fashion, there is also the Paris of everyday life. And what could be more everyday (quotidien) than dry cleaning or having a dress or pair of pants altered? This little bellhop with his … Continue reading →