HISTORY ❘ CHÂTEAUX OF BURGUNDY


Even after Ernest Hemingway had liberated the Ritz bar, and served champagne to soldiers there in celebration of the Nazis’ retreat (which had actually happened before he got there), Chanel struggled to regain her fan-base. She did, however, gasp her final breath in her bed at the Ritz in 1971. A few years after that, Charles Ritz, the hotel founder’s son, also passed away. The glitz had faded and, without the presence of original family members at its helm, profits began to plummet. Once the setting of Audrey Hepburn movies like Love in the Afternoon, the Ritz was now suffering a slump. Businessman Mohamed al-Fayed purchased it in 1979 and injected a great deal of cash into reinventing its prestige, but after the symbolic dethroning of fashion royalty, tragedy struck for a real royal too. Princess Diana had been dining in the Imperial suite with her boyfriend Dodi al-Fayed, Mohamed’s son, before they met their death a mile and a half away. Fleeing with the paparazzi in hot pursuit, their driver lost control of the vehicle at the entrance to the Pont de l’Alma tunnel. The hotel endured a turbulent time thereafter, but after a four-year, multi-million-euro renovation it reopened in 2016, to enormous acclaim.


PAMPERED BIRMAN


This page, from top to bottom: The Imperial suite at the Ritz Paris; the Hôtel du Palais in Biarritz is the only place outside the UK where a British prime minister has been appointed; luxurious accommodation at the Hôtel du Petit Moulin in the Marais


94 ❘ FRANCE TODAY Apr/May 2020


There are other residences in the area with historical associations to Coco Chanel, such as Hôtel Castille, which is located right next door to her shop. The owners’ much-loved Russian Blue cat, Heliot, is billed as a rival to Choupette, the pampered Birman of the late Karl Lagerfeld (ironically also a Chanel designer). Now let’s go to an altogether different type of Ritz: Biarritz. Back in 1908, before Chanel had so much as opened her first shop, let alone established this corner


IMAGES © CHLOE GOVAN, AGENCE WEBCOM, VINCENT LEROUX, DENNIS JARVIS


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148