“There was a plate of hors d’oeuvres, including a slice of Jura paté, flavored with wild thyme, and, as the main dish, a succulent stew or an escallop of veal, a salad, and goat’s cheese, plus a small carafe of the onionskin wine and, of course, a demitasse of black French coffee, which tasted like death. It was a civilized, countrified, delicious, inexpensive French meal.”
–Janet Flanner, ‘The Greatest Refreshment’, The New Yorker, March 4, 1972

The world over, right now, millions of us are sitting down together for a meal, and for most of us – lucky enough not to be living in a war zone or suffering through some other catastrophe – this daily necessity is also one of life’s great pleasures. An indulgence, a luxury, but at the same time utterly ordinary, and democratic too. (I like this paradox.) Flavors are something we all understand. Our differences somehow tend to take a back seat over the deliciousness of an oyster, a plate of couscous or pasta or rice, a bowl of pho, a steak-frites, a Greek salad, an egg, a mango. Flavors, ingredients, recipes slip across borders, and through time – universal and eternal. No translation required.

The act of cooking, of serving, of eating and of receiving generates conversation, even wit, sometimes debate or dispute, to go with the dishes. The table is a site of production, where preparing and consuming a meal catalyzes language, relationships, rituals and aesthetic choices – art de la table, art de vivre, savoir-vivre all come into play, not as ornament, but as active ingredients. Together, these elements turn the table into a creative force-field, where food is the medium and culture unfolds in real time.

Bookshops, too, can be a similar kind of space, gathering places of action and interaction, creativity and sharing. Here in Paris, 0fr. is a bookshop of the best kind, where selling books becomes a backdrop to the bookseller as host and mastermind of a community preoccupied with ideas and ‘making’, or just fun. Browse the books – Alex and Marie’s edits and arrangements provide energizing associations of ideas – then wander into the back gallery where you will get caught up in a book launch, a poetry reading, a pop-up, an exhibition opening or a performance.

Often, what follows is a dinner orchestrated by Michaela, Alex’s wife: friends and strangers seated together around the big table at the 0fr. Grand Studio, extending the conversation long into the night, and, if you’re lucky, culminating in a wildly uninhibited karaoke session! 0fr. has created an open space where bookselling and hospitality become a radical form of cultural practice. Because making art and ideas freely accessible, and creating a place where strangers can gather around them, 365/365, is a quietly defiant act. This is a bookshop as a machine that kills fascists, like Woody Guthrie’s guitar.

0fr. stands firmly in a lineage of bookshop as site of encounter, hospitality and experimentation. For generations, the Parisian bookshop has demonstrated how it can be both a refuge and a launchpad – the famous ‘third place’ between home and work, in between the private and the public, where thinking happens aloud, and collectively. I’m thinking of course of Adrienne Monnier and Sylvia Beach, but also of Sylvia Whitman, and of the hundreds of indie bookshop owners currently operating in Paris.

When foreigners arrive in Paris or France, there is often a quiet joy in discovering the importance of meals here, the ritual of it all, the traditions of the table and the counter. Look at the bonedeep satisfaction in Janet Flanner’s description of a lunch taken at her favorite restaurant, on Rue Jacob in Saint-Germain, over a century ago, reproduced here for the book’s epigraph.

In France, meals become a kind of holy clock, regulating daily life, dividing up the day, with discrete moments of potential transcendence. Starting with the croissant – and its always outrageous explosion of crumbs – ideally eaten at the counter of the local café, and which is really just to line the stomach for the onslaught of coffee. This light breakfast means you’re hungry for a proper, hot, sit-down meal at lunch, enjoyed somewhere between noon and 2pm, preferably with wine. (Sunday lunch, which starts later and lasts longer, is in a glorious category of its own.) By mid-afternoon, a hot crêpe or another goûter with the kids may intervene.

Then, around 7pm, it’s time for the marvelous apéro – that moment that gets made up as it goes along – anything from a sneaky afterwork glass thrown back before racing home to cook dinner, to wine and peanuts in lieu of dinner, or an all-out party fueled by cheese and charcuterie platters that trails off into the night. Then of course comes the classic French dinner, that starts anywhere from 8pm: entrée, main, dessert, maybe a little fromage. Wine. Bread. And there’s all sorts of other delicious micromoments or hybrids too – the amuse-bouche, the hors d’oeuvre, the souper, the sandwich, the cocktail dînatoire, café-calva, trou normand, and the digestif (still served in Economy class on Air France!).

In these pages, the community of food-loving friends we invited to contribute a recipe generally express a love of French traditions around food, the abundant quality and variety of ingredients we have the luxury of finding in Paris, the city’s multitude of excellent neighborhood restaurants, cafés, markets, bakeries and groceries. We marvel at the ease here of feeding ourselves and others well. And also the vibrant and living connections between the plate and the farm, the farmers, the land, the seasons.

I love the Paris I see mirrored – and manifested – in this book: a city that is at once deeply rooted and endlessly porous. A melting pot. A terre d’accueil. Paris is a cosmopolitan place where people arrive carrying recipes, memories and rituals from elsewhere, to find themselves at a shared table. What makes Paris truly vital is how its traditions are continually reinterpreted, expanded and enriched, by new generations, and by those arriving from elsewhere. This book continues the preoccupations that have shaped my work since I moved here from Melbourne a couple of decades ago. In books and other business, I like exploring the intersections where self-expression meets culture, history and community. I seek out and champion the people and places that give Paris its special flavor, mapping liberté, égalité, fraternité in its many modern guises. I’m drawn to the slow, the strange, the new, the true and the beautiful, and how these values are in fact zones of resistance.

The 0fr. Paris Cookbook is an invitation to set the table for friends, for strangers, for those who arrive hungry, curious, open, with something to say. To activate the table as a site of connection, creativity and care. In a moment when the world feels rushed and fragmented – overrun with paranoia, propaganda and incomprehension – these recipes remind us of something essential: that joy can be simple, that politics can arrive on a fork, that hospitality can be radical, and that sitting down to eat and drink together matters.

Enjoy:)

Kate van den Boogert

Read more about The 0fr. Paris Cookbook here

Welcome to Paris, Puces. on Substack. Expect the best of : LIFE IN PARIS 🇫🇷 each week, plus expert intel and tips from the world’s most epic FLEA MARKET✨ Art, Fashion, Design !

On Mondays: Life in Paris postcards - a curated mix of sights, bites and delights, celebrating Paris Makers, and the strange, new, true, and beautiful, forever!

On Fridays: Flea market intel - in-depth guides, behind-the-scenes stories and practical tips (this content is now paywalled, but Life in Paris remains free).

It’s flea-market fever with our friends at the French-loving LA brand Clare V.

Together, we’ve collaborated on a limited-edition capsule collection of three baseball caps inspired by my book The Paris Flea Market – which explores the strange, enchanted city within the city that is the Puces de Saint-Ouen, where antiques, design, curiosities and junk collide.

The three caps take their cues from two major French design movements, French Modern and Second Empire, as well as the magic of the Paul Bert Serpette market:

FRENCH MODERN – think Le Corbusier, Charlotte Perriand, Pierre Chareau, Eileen Gray and Jean Prouvé. Paris was one of modernism’s crucial laboratories, where architecture, art, fashion and the decorative arts converged.

SECOND EMPIRE – think Napoleon III, Empress Eugénie and Haussmann’s remaking of Paris. From grand apartments to lavishly appointed salons, the period’s eclectic interiors drew on historical styles, rich materials and a taste for theatrical display.

And the PAUL BERT SERPETTE market at the Puces - a living archive of design and its discontents, where styles, materials and technologies from different eras collide, the canon meets the curious, and new histories take shape.

🧢 Made from 100% cotton, with an adjustable strap, embroidered lettering on the front and the PARIS, PUCES. logo embroidered on the back. Unisex - one size fits most.

Hi, and welcome to Paris, Puces. 🇫🇷
If you’d like to stay in the loop, consider subscribing. I share a weekly edit where art, fashion, design and the Puces de Saint-Ouen flea market collide.

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🖤 Ann Demeulemeester has opened a first Paris boutique, in the Palais Royal, in the former Delvaux space. The space brings together womenswear, menswear, shoes, accessories and Demeulemeester’s Serax tableware collections, set within a stark, tactile palette of black oak, zinc and black linen that distils the brand’s radical, poetic aesthetic. The Belgian designer, one of the legendary Antwerp Six, stepped down from her eponymous label in 2013; today, the house shows in Paris under creative director Stefano Gallici. 151-154 Galerie de Valois

🏺 Vases gone rogue at Daguet Bresson! For Spoiled, his first solo exhibition in Paris, Dutch artist Danny Cremers takes the classic porcelain vase and pushes it into stranger, more extravagant territory – using an intuitive handbuilding process to explore classical forms through visible imperfections and rich surfaces. Cremers trained in fashion design at Central Saint Martins before turning to ceramics, and his work is a deliciously excessive mix of opulence and disorder, somewhere between functional ceramics and sculpture.

🧥 Young Paris menswear label Museum Garments is popping up in the Marais later this week (8–11 Oct) with its AW26–27 collection. Founded in 2022, the brand mines the history of utilitarian, military and workwear, reworking classic references into quality everyday clothes. A real emphasis is placed on making things well: the finest natural materials, exceptional European ateliers, and garments designed to last and be cherished. The philosophy is simple: buy less, buy smarter. Opens Thu. 28 rue du Petit Musc, 75004

🏛️ Every two years, the Louvre invites two guest artists to set up studios inside the museum, immersing them in its collections, architecture and history and giving them time to develop new work in response. The latest “hosts” are American painter Elizabeth Peyton and French-Algerian artist Kader Attia, who are currently presenting the outcome of their two-year sojourn in the Salle de la Chapelle (Sully Wing). Peyton’s paintings and drawings offer contemporary re-readings of works from the Louvre alongside portraits of historical and contemporary figures who have long inspired her; Attia responds through film and installation, exploring memory, history and the gaze.

👞 For Fashion Week, J.M. Weston has transformed its Avenue Victor Hugo boutique into a two-week pop-up dedicated to Weston Vintage, its second-hand offering. Expect a treasure hunt through iconic models with a past – all restored by hand at the brand’s Limoges manufacture, where shoes are repaired and resoled before being put back into circulation. Launched in 2019, the programme gives classic Weston models a second life, with vintage pairs selling for around half the price of new ones. Last day tomorrow! 97 avenue Victor Hugo, 75116 Paris

Thanks for reading :)

Kate

Welcome to Paris, Puces. on Substack. Expect the best of : LIFE IN PARIS 🇫🇷 each week, plus expert intel and tips from the world’s most epic FLEA MARKET✨ Art, Fashion, Design !

On Mondays: Life in Paris postcards - a curated mix of sights, bites and delights, celebrating Paris Makers, and the strange, new, true, and beautiful, forever!

On Fridays: Flea market intel - in-depth guides, behind-the-scenes stories and practical tips (this content is now paywalled, but Life in Paris remains free).

Hi, and welcome to Paris, Puces. 🇫🇷
If you’d like to stay in the loop, consider subscribing. I share a weekly edit where art, fashion, design and the Puces de Saint-Ouen flea market collide.

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🖤 To mark 30 years at its plush Marais hôtel particulier, the MEP is celebrating one of the photographers who helped shape its collection with Penn & Fashion, opening Wed during Fashion Week. It follows Penn’s extraordinary fashion work from the Paris couture of the 1950s and his long-standing collaboration with Vogue through to his radical, sculptural work with Issey Miyake and later collaborations with Galliano, Lacroix and Chanel in the early aughts.

🔮 The wonderful Messy Nessy – who sprinkles fairy dust over life in Paris with her imagination and wit – is expanding her Parisian cabinet of curiosities. The cult storyteller’s Wunderkammer is tripling in size, bringing Paris alive through more vintage finds, more ingenious inventions – Eau de Seine, anyone? – new and vintage books and more creative Paris merch, including pieces from our friend En Vrac. Part shop, part secret hideaway, part Narnia’s wardrobe, discover the new space from Wed. 19 rue de Bièvre, 75005

🚨 Paris gets a hot new late-night dining and dancing destination with Le Poisson Volant, opening in the former L’Internationale in the 11th. Bertrand Chauveau of Le Cornichon joins forces with chef Yanxin Yin for Chinese and Franco-Asian cooking – think bao, grilled dumplings and wontons with pig’s trotter and langoustine tartare – before the restaurant morphs into a club from 11pm.
Opens Fri! 5/7 Rue Marguerite Moret, 75011

🐟 And from the team behind Canal Saint-Martin hotspot L’Oursin comes L’Atlantic, a new seafood bar located on that funny elevated strip running between Strasbourg–Saint-Denis and Répu. Think ultra-fresh fish and shellfish over open flames, great tarama, natural wine and cocktails in a long, old-school Parisian bar – Chez Jeannette for Gen Z, but with considerably more ambition on the plate.

🛍️ Also on our radar this week, fashion and accessory trade fair Première Classe returns to the Tuileries for Fashion Week with creative direction from our friends at such&such, including such a boutique! – a curated cabinet of curiosities open to the public and spanning fashion, beauty and design, with brands chosen for their strong sense of purpose. Also new this year is JILL, a new event running alongside Première Classe billed as the first Paris rendez-vous “dedicated to collaborations, one-offs and limited editions”, conceived by smart former Hyères director Jean-Pierre Blanc.

🇨🇭 And finally, my friends at Maison Shift – the home of Switzerland’s slow-fashion community – are back in Paris for Fashion Week, showcasing eight emerging Swiss designers committed to sustainable fashion. I’m happy to be partnering with them again at the newly renovated Centre culturel suisse – come by and say hi! Full programme + details here. Opens tomorow!

See you there!

Kate

Welcome to Paris, Puces. on Substack. Expect the best of : LIFE IN PARIS 🇫🇷 each week, plus expert intel and tips from the world’s most epic FLEA MARKET✨ Art, Fashion, Design !

On Mondays: Life in Paris postcards - a curated mix of sights, bites and delights, celebrating Paris Makers, and the strange, new, true, and beautiful, forever!

On Fridays: Flea market intel - in-depth guides, behind-the-scenes stories and practical tips (this content is now paywalled, but Life in Paris remains free).

MAISON SHIFT – house and home of Switzerland’s slow fashion community – returns to Paris to showcase a curated selection of Swiss designers at the newly renovated Centre culturel suisse during Paris Fashion Week. The exhibition is designed to promote awareness of the diversity and quality of Swiss design while leaving room for exchange around the shared commitment to holistic creation, production and business practices.

» ANASTASIA BULL » FANGIS » CASA VAYU » ILHEMENT » NIMA KAUFMANN » RAPPAZ » SHERYLIN » SIEGENTHALER »

The eight participating studios convinced an international jury on the basis of their clear aesthetic identity, the quality of their creations, the importance they placed on implementing sustainable practices, as well as their long-term business model.

Wed 30 Sep – Sun 4 Oct 2026
Centre culturel suisse, 32 rue des Francs Bourgeois, 75003 Paris
Open 10am–2pm (Industry) | 2pm-7pm (General Public)

Consult ticket options and the full program here: maisonshift.ch/International

» Extending the Centre culturel suisse’s courtyard buvette, a recreational space offers somewhere to linger, read, reflect & connect throughout the event. »

FRI 2 OCT: FASHION FUTURES SYMPOSIUM & VERNISSAGE
hosted by Mkrs. and sponsored by PKZ
with guests Thibaut Ledunois, Katharina Sand & Florence Tétier

As fashion undergoes profound environmental, economic and cultural shifts, sustainability can no longer be viewed through a single lens. This symposium brings together designers and industry leaders to discuss how more resilient models might emerge – ones that support not only the planet, but also the financial viability of independent businesses and the conditions for meaningful creative work to thrive.

6–7pm : Symposium
7–9.30pm : Vernissage with concert by Augusto Moraes

SAT 3 OCT: DOING FASHION GRADUATE PERFORMANCE
Basel Academy of Art & Design,
University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland FHNW

The Doing Fashion program at HGK Basel FHNW unfolds as a contemporary, critical exploration and research practice, operating at the interface between analogue and digital design methods. It focuses on the body, its movement and its situatedness in the world. The Basel approach sees Fashion as more than the convergence of design and art: its power lies in the performativity of its design, its creation and shaping, as well as in its presentation.

7–8pm : Performance Nº 1
8–9pm : Apéro
9–10pm : Performance Nº 2

See you there!

Kate

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👑 Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette is everywhere you look right now in Paris. On the occasion of the cult film’s 20th anniversary, Versailles is presenting a “making of” exhibition at the Petit Trianon, opening tomorrow! and designed in collaboration with the director. It brings together original costumes, props, storyboards, photographs and set elements, with screenings in the very rooms where the film was shot. Meanwhile, Andrew Durham’s new book Making Marie Antoinette gaathers his photographs from on and off the set, alongside an oral history and a new conversation with Coppola.

🪶 The glorious, wild and ferociously independent Leonor Fini (1907–1996) is having a long-overdue reassessment as one of the great artists of the 20th century. Galerie Minsky, which has championed her work for decades, presents a new exhibition bringing together paintings, portraits, theatre designs and drawings from across her career. It’s the first act of a much bigger Fini moment, with major retrospectives coming soon, including at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris next spring.

👒 Maison Michel brings the art of hatmaking to life at 19M. Founded in 1936 and now part of Chanel, the historic milliner has been making hats for the great fashion houses for nearly a century. Métamorphoses explores the forms, materials and highly specialized savoir-faire behind the Maison’s hats, alongside archive pieces and new collaborations with young designers. Plus Michel Gondry’s fabulous Home Movie Factory sets up shop in a recreated Maison Michel hat shop, inviting visitors to make their own short film throughout the exhibition – every Sat (2–5pm, free with reservation).

👖 A new exhibition at the Palais Galliera explores a key moment in fashion history when women began pushing back against prescribed roles by borrowing from the male wardrobe – at a time when French women technically needed police permission to wear trousers. A Wardrobe of One’s Own: Dissident Femininities in the 19th Century looks at the growing adoption of trousers, tailored suits, cravats and top hats as a statement of freedom and liberation, with nearly 500 pieces, including French queer icon Rosa Bonheur’s complete wardrobe. Opens Sat.

🌝 And finally, the annual night-time takeover of the flea market at Saint-Ouen, Fête des Puces, is back this Thursday. The different markets stay open late, each with its own theme, music, performances, exhibitions and other surprises – from a Second Empire ball at Biron to a world tour at Paul Bert Serpette and a new Hyperloft installation at Dauphine. A rare chance to experience the Puces after dark. From 7pm. Download your invitation here, here or here.

See you there!

Kate

Welcome to Paris, Puces. on Substack. Expect the best of : LIFE IN PARIS 🇫🇷 each week, plus expert intel and tips from the world’s most epic FLEA MARKET✨ Art, Fashion, Design !

On Mondays: Life in Paris postcards - a curated mix of sights, bites and delights, celebrating Paris Makers, and the strange, new, true, and beautiful, forever!

On Fridays: Flea market intel - in-depth guides, behind-the-scenes stories and practical tips (this content is now paywalled, but Life in Paris remains free).

Manolo opened his stand at the Marché Paul Bert in 2023, at the age of 23, after a few years working with wood, making frames and plinths for artworks. Part of a new generation of dealers, he moves freely across centuries and cultures, bringing together Roman and Egyptian antiquities, French folk art, 20th-century design, constructivist or primitive objects, and curious finds from around the world. What matters to him is less their period or provenance than the mystery, beauty and sense of the sacred he finds in them – and the delicate art of composing a stand in which disparate objects can enter into unexpected relationships. For Manolo, being a dealer also means the privilege of living, for a while, with objects far beyond his own means – an ancient Greek head, an Egyptian stele, great quantities of marble and other sublime things – until they find their next home.

Read more

Hi, and welcome to Paris, Puces. 🇫🇷
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✍🏼 Drawing and illustration were the foundation of Andy Warhol’s practice as an artist. Opening tomorrow at the Musée du Luxembourg, Andy Warhol. Line & Image brings together around 150 drawings – alongside paintings, silkscreen prints, photographs and archival material – revealing how the hand-drawn line remained a place of constant experimentation. Five thematic sections trace his early career as a commercial illustrator through handwriting, faces and masks, the gay imagery he kept largely private, and his preoccupation with death after being shot by Valerie Solanas in 1968.

🏃 Local running brand Satisfy has opened its first permanent spaces, facing each other on Rue de Saintonge: Supply (between Isabel Marant and Buly) carries its technical running gear, while the Fuel Station opposite is a refuelling stop for “functional coffee” and “performance nutrition”. Founded by April77’s Brice Partouche, Satisfy brings his old punk/skate counter-culture energy to running, with imaginative interiors by our friends Ciguë.

🍁 The Festival d’Automne returns for four thrilling months of theatre, dance, music and performance. One of the city’s most adventurous and long-running arts festivals, it has been championing artists and unexpected encounters since 1972. This year’s edition includes five new works by Moroccan choreographer Bouchra Ouizguen, a portrait of Canadian composer Cassandra Miller, Australian theatre company Back to Back Theatre, and a particularly strong dance line-up, from Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker to Lucinda Childs.

✂️ From NYC: artist Tom Sachs has transformed his SoHo studio into an unauthorized facsimile of Chanel’s mythic first boutique at 31 rue Cambon, in time for New York fashion week. Bringing his fascination with consumerism, branding and the cultural fetishization of products to the project, Sachs painstakingly recreates Chanel suits, jewellery, furniture, packaging and retail displays from plywood, acrylic, cardboard, tape and other found materials, accompanied by a soundtrack mixing ambient and horror-film music with archival Chanel advertising.

🍅 And finally, Le Doyenné, James Henry and Shaun Kelly’s celebrated farm-to-table restaurant just outside Paris, is bringing its marché to friend Esu Lee’s Orson in Saint-Germain this Sunday (5 rue du Dragon). Expect fabulous heirloom vegetables and herbs from the garden – the last of summer’s tomatoes, shiso, galanga, eggplant and more – alongside their naturally leavened bread made with local flour and house pastries, from 9am until sold out, so get there early!

thanks for reading :)

Kate

Welcome to Paris, Puces. on Substack. Expect the best of : LIFE IN PARIS 🇫🇷 each week, plus expert intel and tips from the world’s most epic FLEA MARKET✨ Art, Fashion, Design !

On Mondays: Life in Paris postcards - a curated mix of sights, bites and delights, celebrating Paris Makers, and the strange, new, true, and beautiful, forever!

On Fridays: Flea market intel - in-depth guides, behind-the-scenes stories and practical tips (this content is now paywalled, but Life in Paris remains free).

This interview is excerpted from my book The Paris Flea Market (Prestel, 2024), described by The New York Times as “a celebration of the culture, history and oddball treasures of the market”.

At Marché Dauphine, Jean-Paul has built his business around one unlikely source: the Banque de France. Since 2006 he has made a specialty of dismantling closed bank branches – their vaults, archive rooms and director’s apartments – salvaging the old safes, bullion boxes, fittings and fine furniture that otherwise might be scrapped. It is, in its way, a return rather than a departure. His great-grandfather arrived from the Aveyron region of France and went into scrap metal, and Jean-Paul grew up in the family business, before moving into antiques in the 1980s, gradually working his way toward finer eighteenth-century pieces. The bank vaults brought him back to his beginnings, but with a new eye. Jean-Paul speaks of his trade less as dealing than as excavation – of exhuming the stories embedded in overlooked places, and of the Puces itself as a barometer for the wider culture, shaped these days as much by real-estate speculation as by any spirit of freedom.

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Hi, and welcome to Paris, Puces. 🇫🇷
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✨ Two hundred years ago, French engineer and inventor Nicéphore Niépce used a camera obscura to capture the view from a window at his family property in Burgundy and, after several days of exposure, succeeded in fixing an image of the world onto a tin plate. His Point de vue du Gras, made around 1826–27, is the oldest surviving photograph – a modest image that changed the way we see. The Bicentenaire de la Photographie is celebrating the revolution Niépce’s pioneering image inaugurated, with museums, galleries and cultural institutions across France joining a year-long programme through Sep 2027. Watch out for exhibitions and events at the Bourse de Commerce, Jeu de Paume, MEP, Le Bal, BnF, Paris Photo etc.…

🌿 Paris creative powerhouse @ElsaMuse opens Apoticari, an elegant botanical counter and tisane house at 39 rue des Gravilliers. The Paris outpost of her new Born-in-Auvergne green beauty brand gives herbal infusions the setting they deserve, with carefully sourced plants selected according to terroir and season, alongside herbal blends, signature drinks and Apoticari’s natural skincare collection.

😢 Christophe Lemaire and Sarah-Linh Tran’s final Uniqlo U collection, for Fall/Winter 2026, launches globally on Friday. The tenth anniversary collection brings another iteration of their elegant take on “Future LifeWear Essentials”, with the signature cuts and subtle palette that have defined their decade at the brand. If the collab is ending, Uniqlo U is set to continue minus its founding artistic directors.

🪑 Paris makers Moustache mark Paris Design Week with the opening of a new showroom, the launch of Bloc, a one-piece armchair designed with Dutch designer Aldo Bakker, and an exhibition inaugurating Moustache Collectible, a new curatorial project putting pieces from the Moustache collection into dialogue with works spanning design history, from Enzo Mari, Shiro Kuramata and Ettore Sottsass to Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Formafantasma and Wieki Somers. On view 10–15 Sep at 10 boulevard de Magenta.

👑 And finally, the Galerie d’Apollon – the infamous site of last year’s jaw-dropping jewellery heist – reopens at the Louvre. The precious objects and jewels that survived the theft have now been removed for good, leaving the room to shine on its own painted and sculpted decoration for the first time in more than a century. Built more than 350 years ago and embellished over two centuries by the likes of Le Brun and Delacroix, the royal gallery famously served as the model for Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors.

Thanks for reading!

Kate

Welcome to Paris, Puces. on Substack. Expect the best of : LIFE IN PARIS 🇫🇷 each week, plus expert intel and tips from the world’s most epic FLEA MARKET✨ Art, Fashion, Design !

On Mondays: Life in Paris postcards - a curated mix of sights, bites and delights, celebrating Paris Makers, and the strange, new, true, and beautiful, forever!

On Fridays: Flea market intel - in-depth guides, behind-the-scenes stories and practical tips (this content is now paywalled, but Life in Paris remains free).

👉🏽 After years exploring the Puces de Saint-Ouen and researching for my book ‘The Paris Flea Market’, I now share that insider knowledge through bespoke buying and research tours – for collectors, decorators, architects, or anyone who wants to explore the markets with a deeper eye. Hit me up!

On the US publication of The Paris Flea Market in 2024, I spoke with journalist Marisa Meltzer for the Style section of The New York Times about the Puces de Saint-Ouen and the years I’ve spent getting to know the place. We talked about what makes it so strange, unruly and endlessly compelling.

“What is fascinating is these endless rabbit holes of expertise and taste,” said Ms. van den Boogert. “There’s someone that just sells door knobs. There is a woman who sells old tools. There are sculptures from old châteauxs, gilded mirrors, paintings, furniture of all epochs, crystal and silverware and ceramics, lace from Brittany.”

→Read the full article in The New York Times

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Hi, and welcome to Paris, Puces. 🇫🇷

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🍊 A dedicated space for the parfumerie and papeterie collections of fave Paris makers Astier de Villatte has just opened practically next door to the original boutique, at 171 rue Saint-Honoré, leaving more space for ceramics at 173. Come for the eaux de parfum and colognes – including the brand new Tanger, a fragrant evocation of the bohemian Moroccan city – alongside scented candles and incense. The cult agenda is back in stock too.

🪑 Following last year’s acquisition of one of France’s oldest furniture workshops in Villers-Cotterêts, historic Parisian fabric house Maison Pierre Frey is doubling down on its furniture collections. Opening tomorrow, not far from its legendary fabric showroom on Rue du Mail, Galerie 14 Mail brings together the maison’s French-made furniture, including collaborations with contemporary talents Constance Guisset, Christophe Delcourt and Tristan Auer.

⚡️ A year after his giant Centre Pompidou survey closed, and following a year as visiting professor at the Beaux-Arts de Paris, Wolfgang Tillmans returns to Galerie Chantal Crousel with a new solo exhibition. Glade / Clairière brings together photographs, cameraless photograms, sculpture, and video works made during a recent residency at the Cité internationale des Arts. Opens Wed.

🏛️ The address is the same; the menu has changed. New restaurant Eupatoria 5 has taken over the former site of Eva Pritsky, whose legendary bar/ brocante was a Ménilmontant fixture with Parisian personnalités exceptionnelles for almost 40 years. The restaurant has kept much of its character – including Eva’s library – while chef Basile Eidel brings a fresh, instinctive take on modern Greek food, served alongside natural wines and a terrace overlooking the local church.

🍸 A year after unveiling its gobsmacking new home at Palais-Royal, the Fondation Cartier starts a new chapter with the opening of two new culinary spaces from Anne-Sophie Pic, one of France’s most esteemed chefs. First up, Utopic, her debut cocktail bar, opens Fri, with drinks inspired by her imprégnation philosophy of aromatic layers and infusions, and with a dedicated entry on Rue de Marengo. Two weeks later comes Anne-Sophie Pic Paris, replacing La Dame de Pic, her Rue du Louvre address since 2012. The new restaurant brings Pic’s cuisine into dialogue with Jean Nouvel’s architecture and the Fondation’s exhibitions (Ibrahim Mahama. The Harvest Season opens 22 Oct), with an entrance on Rue de Rivoli.

Thanks for reading :)

Kate

Welcome to Paris, Puces. on Substack. Expect the best of : LIFE IN PARIS 🇫🇷 each week, plus expert intel and tips from the world’s most epic FLEA MARKET✨ Art, Fashion, Design !

On Mondays: Life in Paris postcards - a curated mix of sights, bites and delights, celebrating Paris Makers, and the strange, new, true, and beautiful, forever!

On Fridays: Flea market intel - in-depth guides, behind-the-scenes stories and practical tips (this content is now paywalled, but Life in Paris remains free).

This interview is excerpted from my book The Paris Flea Market (Prestel, 2024), described the New York Times as “a celebration of the culture, history and oddball treasures of the market”.

A second-generation Puces dealer, Hugo grew up with the trade in his blood. His mother, Hélène Greiner, opened her gallery on Boulevard Raspail in 1990 – the year Hugo was born. Positioned between the historic artists’ quarter of Montparnasse and the gallery world of Saint-Germain, she spent 30 years there championing and rediscovering a largely overlooked strand of twentieth-century sculpture. Her influence continues to shape Hugo’s practice today, particularly his passion for Modern sculpture and his instinct for artists who sit outside the canon. His own eye, however, is deliberately difficult to pin down. In 2026, he moved from Serpette to the Marché Dauphine, bringing this expansive sensibility with him. His selection moves between Surrealism, abstraction, Modern sculpture, American and European furniture, glass and lighting, resisting the idea that a dealer needs to belong to a single school or period. Eclectic by conviction rather than by accident, he is interested in the connections between things – and in following his own eye in an age increasingly mediated by algorithms and received opinion. Music is central to his sensibility too, informing his instinct for rhythm, juxtaposition and unexpected connections. For Hugo, old and new are less opposites than echoes, each continually reshaping the other.

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This interview is excerpted from my book The Paris Flea Market (Prestel, 2024), described the New York Times as “a celebration of the culture, history and oddball treasures of the market”.

Never wanting to pin himself to one period or speciality, Jean-Luc Ferrand is a generalist in the best sense of the word. At the heart of Marché Biron, his roomy, two-floor stand brings together eighteenth-century furniture, objets d’art and twentieth-century pieces, arranged less like a traditional, shambolic flea-market stand than an elegant showroom. Each room is carefully decorated, with rugs, art and furniture creating the kind of setting that allows clients to picture the pieces in their own homes. Across the Puces, at L’Usine, a much larger stockroom is open for private visits, alongside Ferrand’s workshop, where his full-time cabinetmaker, Fabien Schmidt, carries out restoration work in situ. Ferrand runs the business with a distinctly modern sensibility: an up-to-date website, price tags on every piece, and a practice that moves between antiques and contemporary production, with mirrors, furniture, art and sculpture commissioned from contemporary artisans. The son of an antique dealer, Ferrand grew up in the trade, and now one of his daughters, Victoire, is beginning to work alongside him. Yet for all his familiarity with the Puces, he remains under its spell – fascinated by the sheer improbability of its existence, its constant movement, and its strange, ever-changing mix of people, objects and stories.

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This interview is excerpted from my book The Paris Flea Market (Prestel, 2024), described the New York Times as “a celebration of the culture, history and oddball treasures of the market”.

With roots in Saint-Ouen stretching back to the years between the wars, Dominique James belongs to one of the Puces’ great family dynasties. His grandfather began as a junk dealer, clearing houses with a cart while his grandmother ran a restaurant on Rue Pasteur in Saint Ouen, before his father established the family business at the Puces in 1948. His uncle joined him in the 1960s, and together they transformed Maison James from a dealer in contemporary furniture into a specialist in nineteenth- and eventually eighteenth-century French furniture. During the “trente glorieuses”, as he calls it, from 1970 to 2000, the business really took off, fuelled by a booming export market and strong demand for 18th-century French antiques from American buyers, and the family expanded into several stands at Vernaison. Today, a deep affection for the eighteenth century and an instinct for the exceptional object remains at the heart of Maison James. In an era of Google and Instagram, he remains attached to the old ways of the trade – to knowledge accumulated through looking, handling and hunting for objects, and to the thrill of the find.

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I’ve just been profiled by the brilliant Véronique Hyland for her Style Points column in ELLE, talking about the Puces de Saint-Ouen, how I came to write The Paris Flea Market, and why the flea market remains such an important resource for the creative industries – including, of course, fashion.

“For so many, the market is an endless well of inspiration that never runs dry. Van den Boogert likens it to a living museum. “You’ve got centuries of style and design and materials all rubbing up against each other. It’s just so rich and multiple, the scale of it, the quantity of things that you can see.”

It was a pleasure to talk about the way the Puces feeds into the creative life of Paris. Fashion designers, stylists, artists, interior designers and collectors have long mined the market for inspiration, materials, references and treasures.

Read the full article on ELLE USA.

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Hi, and welcome to Paris, Puces. 🇫🇷
If you’d like to stay in the loop, consider subscribing. I share a weekly edit where art, fashion, design and the Puces de Saint-Ouen flea market collide.

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A graduate of London’s Architectural Association School of Architecture, Julien Sebban founded Uchronia in 2019, on his return to Paris. Originally the title of his graduation project, Uchronia refers to an imagined or alternative timeline – a world that exists outside conventional history. Since then, it has evolved into a multi-disciplinary creative collective working across architecture, interiors, furniture, scenography and artistic direction. United by a belief that spaces should evoke emotion as much as function, its work resists minimalism and good taste design in favour of joyful, generous and unapologetically colourful interiors that aim to feel at once contemporary and timeless.

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Hi, and welcome to Paris, Puces. 🇫🇷
If you’d like to stay in the loop, consider subscribing. I share a weekly edit where art, fashion, design and the Puces de Saint-Ouen flea market collide.

Subscribe now

Following my guide to the Vernaison and Biron markets, then the Dauphine market, this third instalment focuses on the dealers of the Marché Paul-Bert and Serpette, as well as surrounding market streets. Together, these three chapters reveal why Saint-Ouen remains an essential destination for anyone interested in the history, culture and future of fashion.

Fashion has always been part of the DNA of the Puces de Saint-Ouen. Long before vintage became desirable, before archive fashion entered the industry lexicon, and before stylists, designers and collectors arrived in search of inspiration, the market’s predecessors were already sorting, repairing, repurposing and reselling clothing.

The roots of the Puces lie in the world of the chiffonniers, or ragpickers, who from the nineteenth century sifted through Paris’s discarded possessions in search of anything that might be reused or sold. Textiles were among their most valuable finds. Rags were recycled into paper, garments repaired and resold, and a thriving second-hand economy emerged on the margins of the city. Many of the specialist dealers who followed – including Jewish immigrants with backgrounds in tailoring, hat-making and clothing repair – found a natural home in Saint-Ouen, helping establish the market’s long association with fashion and textiles.

Today, the fashion landscape of the Puces is remarkably diverse. Vintage specialists sit alongside dealers in military surplus and French workwear, designer vintage, archive fashion, luxury bags, jewellery and other accessories, streetwear, deadstock, antique costume, lace, textiles and menswear. Fashion students, costume departments, collectors, stylists and luxury brands all come here to research, source and buy.

The market itself continues to evolve. The stretch running alongside the périphérique that was once known for trinkets, second-hand clothing and American military surplus has largely been overtaken by an industrial-scale trade in counterfeit goods – everything from Chanel to Nike – creating a sharp divide between two very different worlds. Yet beyond this barrier, the Puces remains one of Europe’s richest hunting grounds for vintage fashion.

Read more

Hi, and welcome to Paris, Puces. 🇫🇷

If you’d like to stay in the loop, consider subscribing. I share a weekly edit where art, fashion, design and the Puces de Saint-Ouen flea market collide.

Subscribe now

⚡️ François Morellet arrives at Versailles, marking the centenary of the birth one of France’s great pioneers of geometric abstraction. Six major works are installed throughout the château and gardens, where neon, steel and mathematical systems cut through the lavish interiors with the radical, playful spirit that defined Morellet’s practice.

🌱 After working in some of Copenhagen and Berlin’s most celebrated restaurants, Montreal-born chef Jules St-Cyr has opened his first Paris restaurant, Bittikesu. Tucked away on a quiet street behind the Bassin de l’Arsenal, the space seats just 10 guests around a bespoke oak counter, reflecting his intimate approach to cooking. Drawing on wild foraging, produce from his own vegetable garden in Montreuil and close relationships with fishermen, growers and farmers, the menu evolves with the seasons. A wood-fired oven adds another dimension.

📦 To coincide with the recent opening of its third Paris boutique beneath the arcades of the Palais-Royal, Lemaire presents A Box of Impressions, a photography exhibition contained within a box rather than displayed on the walls. Co-curated by Lou Stoppard and Sarah-Linh Tran, it brings together works by more than 20 photographers, including Teju Cole, Paul Kooiker, Justine Kurland and Jeff Mermelstein, exploring observation, ephemerality and the shifting boundaries between public and private – a nod to Colette, who chronicled life from her Palais-Royal apartment, and a timely echo of the photography season underway in Arles.

🪑 JW Anderson has opened a summer pop-up in Paris at 15 rue du Louvre, bringing the label’s fashion collections together with a selection of craft, design and everyday objects. The space reflects Anderson’s expanding vision for his namesake brand, which continues to evolve as he takes on his new role at Dior. Among the finds are Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s oak lamps and stools, Jason Mosseri’s Hope Spring chairs, ceramics by Akiko Hirai, Lucie Rie mugs, Murano glassware, Welsh blankets and honey from Houghton Hall – what Anderson calls “things I like and would like to have around me”. Until 24 Sep.

♻️ And finally, a major step towards a more circular fashion industry in Europe. Since yesterday, the European Union has banned large companies from destroying unsold clothing, accessories and footwear under its new Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR). Brands must now prioritize resale, donation, repair and reuse, with medium-sized companies following the same rules from 2030.

Thanks for reading :)

Kate

Welcome to Paris, Puces. on Substack. Expect the best of : LIFE IN PARIS 🇫🇷 each week, plus expert intel and tips from the world’s most epic FLEA MARKET✨ Art, Fashion, Design !

On Mondays: Life in Paris postcards - a curated mix of sights, bites and delights, celebrating Paris Makers, and the strange, new, true, and beautiful, forever!

On Fridays: Flea market intel - in-depth guides, behind-the-scenes stories and practical tips (this content is now paywalled, but Life in Paris remains free).

Hi, and welcome to Paris, Puces. 🇫🇷
If you’d like to stay in the loop, consider subscribing. I share a weekly edit where art, fashion, design and the Puces de Saint-Ouen flea market collide.

Subscribe now

Following my guide to the Vernaison and Biron markets, this second instalment focuses on the dealers and stands of Marché Dauphine. Part 3 will explore Paul-Bert Serpette and the surrounding market streets. Together, these three chapters reveal why Saint-Ouen remains an essential destination for anyone interested in the history, culture and future of fashion.

Fashion has always been part of the DNA of the Puces de Saint-Ouen. Long before vintage became desirable, before archive fashion entered the industry lexicon, and before stylists, designers and collectors arrived in search of inspiration, the market’s predecessors were already sorting, repairing, repurposing and reselling clothing.

The roots of the Puces lie in the world of the chiffonniers, or ragpickers, who from the nineteenth century sifted through Paris’s discarded possessions in search of anything that might be reused or sold. Textiles were among their most valuable finds. Rags were recycled into paper, garments repaired and resold, and a thriving second-hand economy emerged on the margins of the city. Many of the specialist dealers who followed – including Jewish immigrants with backgrounds in tailoring, hat-making and clothing repair – found a natural home in Saint-Ouen, helping establish the market’s long association with fashion and textiles.

Today, the fashion landscape of the Puces is remarkably diverse. Vintage specialists sit alongside dealers in military surplus and French workwear, designer vintage, archive fashion, luxury bags, jewellery and other accessories, streetwear, deadstock, antique costume, lace, textiles and menswear. Fashion students, costume departments, collectors, stylists and luxury brands all come here to research, source and buy.

The market itself continues to evolve. The stretch running alongside the périphérique that was once known for trinkets, second-hand clothing and American military surplus has largely been overtaken by an industrial-scale trade in counterfeit goods – everything from Chanel to Nike – creating a sharp divide between two very different worlds. Yet beyond this barrier, the Puces remains one of Europe’s richest hunting grounds for vintage fashion.

Read more