New, Lavish and Rare

Chanel’s lavish new Paris boutique is the luxury giant’s second address on the prestigious Avenue Montaigne and the brand’s most beautiful shop to date. With gleaming lacquered walls, pearl-studded silk curtains, skylights, balconies and miles of tasteful gilding, the 6,500-square-foot space gave New York-based architect Peter Marino a rare opportunity to take a retail space and run with it. Inspired by Coco Chanel’s legendary rue Cambon apartment, the architect obviously enjoyed embedding clever references to her legacy throughout the space, the most obvious being artist Jean-Michel Othoniel’s monumental double-strand glass “pearls” cascading down the stairwell and pooling over a pristine white marble floor. The French jeweler Goossens created the splendid gilded-bronze and quartz chandeliers, alluding to Chanel’s 1950s heyday, when she hired the company to reinterpret Byzantine and Egyptian jewelry, famously playing on the ambiguity between the real and the fake.

Commissioned works from a dozen international artists punctuate the new two-floor space—bags, small leather goods, scarves, watches, shoes and sunglasses are showcased on the ground floor and ready-to-wear upstairs. To house the precious accessories and métiers d’art collections, Marino designed the store’s pièce de résistance: a double-height room done up floor-to-ceiling in gold tweed wall covering, with a gold-flecked carpet and burnished gold ceiling. Throughout the store, an army of smiling salespeople, speaking dozens of languages, usher VIP clients through discreet mirrored and lacquered doors to private chambers hidden behind.

51 ave Montaigne, 8th, 01.44.50.73.00. www.chanel.com

Fabulous fragrances

The elegant new Jovoy boutique puts the thrill back into shopping for the perfect perfume. And not just any perfume—Jovoy is dedicated to rare, exclusive and limited-edition fragrances made in small quantities by artisanal perfumers with a very selective distribution. Worlds away from the aggressive department store spritzers hawking the latest mass-produced, mass-marketed, pop-star-themed scents, Jovoy’s spacious skylit interior is uncluttered and serene, perfect for whiling away an hour—or an afternoon—exploring unique and expressive fragrances. François Hénin, Jovoy’s passionate owner and ambassador for rare perfumes in Paris, acquired the forgotten perfume house Jovoy—founded in Paris in 1923 by Blanche Arvoy—with the idea of re-creating its classic fragrances, and soon found himself exploring other prestigious small labels as well. His first boutique, with 20 or so independent brands, was an instant success, and he jumped at the chance to acquire a much larger space.

Now carrying some 60 small producers, Jovoy is possibly the largest independent purveyor in the world. Along with the perfumes of Maison Jovoy, the shop carries such vintage brands as Dorin, official perfumer to the Court of Versailles in 1780; Coudray, founded in 1822; Isabey, which recently reissued its 1924 Gardénia; Jacques Fath, from the famed 1940s–1950s couture house; and Napoleon’s favorite, Rancé. Contemporary labels include MDCI and Technique Indiscrète.

Often found in the shop, Hénin delights in expounding on the olfactory qualities and fascinating histories of the perfumes, some dating back hundreds of years and some exclusive to the boutique, which also carries beautifully packaged home fragrances and scented candles.

4 rue de Castiglione, 1st, 01.40.20.06.19. www.jovoyparis.com

Sweet stuff

The year 1636 saw one of those fortunate accidents that change the course of history: Clément Jaluzot, Officier de Bouche (officer of the mouth) to the Maréchal Duc César de Choiseul, Comte de Pressis-Praslin, caramelized some roasted almonds in sugar and created the first praline. (The New Orleans brown-sugar-and-pecan praline is a colonial derivative.) A few years later, the enterprising gentleman began selling the sweets—under the name Au Duc de Praslin—in Montargis, a pretty little village south of Paris. In 1903, a young confectioner named Léon Mazet bought the coveted recipe and started up his own praline shop in Montargis—Maison de la Prasline Mazet. He later opened a shop on the rue Vivienne in Paris that moved to Avenue Victor Hugo before eventually closing in 2010. Now Mazet is back in Paris with a charming new boutique, using the pink, gold and citron tins that date to the shop’s beginnings. Along with pralines and chocolates, made fresh daily, the confiserie’s specialties include Amandas and Mirabos (chocolate covered nougatine); Givrettes and Grêlons, (caramelized roasted almonds and hazelnuts); Kaloudjas (grilled almonds coated with gianduja, or hazelnut paste); and 18 different chocolate bars, including orange-clove, bitter sesame, salted caramel and, of course, praline. Will Mazet go the way of Ladurée, Angelina and Maison du Chocolat to become an international brand? Stay tuned, but for now the adorable little store with its lemon-yellow facade is beautifully, authentically and singularly French.

37 rue des Archives, 4th, 01.44.05.18.08. www.mazetconfiseur.com

Originally published in the May 2012 issue of France Today