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RUE DU BAC ❘ PARISIAN WALKWAYS


“‘UP AND DOWN THE STREET ONE FINDS INDEPENDENT ATELIERS AND SHOPS RUN WITH SIMILAR FERVOUR”


“Sometime it’s haute couture fabrics, sometimes it’s more basic. I’ll never be rich. But that’s not my goal. I entered this profession to work with my hands, and that fills me up in much more meaningful ways.”


Clockwise from this image: Hallowe’en on rue de la Villette;


le Cheval d’Or; (inset) grignotage at Louisette; the Villa de l’Adour


passageway;cars are rare on rue de la Villette; les Folies Douces (which translates roughly as ‘sheer madness’); violins at François Ettori’s atelier


INDEPENDENT ATELIERS Making a living from what you love seems to be a common denominator among the business owners of rue de la Villette. Up and down the street one finds independent ateliers and shops run with similar fervour, from the dynamic children’s bookshop Le Dragon Savant at No. 36 and the new boutique of the publishing house Borealia at No. 33 (founded by an amoureuse of Mongolia and countries of the Northern latitudes) to the antique shop Antica Box at No. 18 (offering transportation-themed decorative antiques from a collector inspired by aviation and maritime history) to the gallery Atelier de Belleville at No. 29, founded by a pair of aesthetes as passionate about Le Haut-Belleville as they are about its street artists. As Nadine Lagalaye, owner of the boutique Davaï at 3 rue de la Villette, puts it, “It’s a street where everyone is living their passion.” Much like Daniel Perret, Nadine had found herself at a mid-career crossroads. “I was having a baby and I wanted to change my life, change my profession,” she recalls. “So I went back to school to study fashion design. I wanted to create clothes that could be worn at every stage in a woman’s life, that could follow the evolution of a


woman’s body throughout her life.” And so was born her line of elegant, versatile dresses, skirts and jackets, all made from recycled haute couture fabrics (Japanese silks from Yves Saint Laurent, Italian wools from Louis Vuitton, cotton gabardine from Hermès)… And all Fabriqué à Paris.


‘Made in Paris’ has become the leitmotif of a whole crop of fashion designers who have settled on and around rue de la Villette in recent years. From Davaï and Les Folies Douces to Les Roussoeurs at No. 17 (founded by sisters Vanessa and Ludivine Méchain) and La Bâloise (just across rue de Belleville at 6 rue Jean-Baptiste Dumay, founded by Anne C. Wirth). It was perhaps only natural that these créatrices with common values would begin gathering together for annual fashion shows. More surprising, though, was their decision to use rue de la Villette itself for their catwalk, annually rolling a red carpet down the street, and inviting their own local clientele to model their garments for the whole of Belleville. It’s the kind of joyous event the quartier has come to expect from rue de la Villette, where every month seems to be the occasion for another neighbourhood celebration, be it a Hallowe’en parade or an outdoor cinema. “At a time when you see streets around the world flooded by the same big brands, ours is a street that resembles no other,” says Jessica. “And that difference is the source of our charm. We just need to keep it that way!” FT


Apr/May 2020 FRANCE TODAY ❘ 55


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