it was the city of my first love

marie laforet

 

 

 

 

 

 

The lovely French songstress...Marie Faforet. I knew her from the 1960 film "Plein Soleil" (the original Talented Mr. Ripley), but I had no idea she was a singer until Adam became obsessed with her overnight...thanks to the awesome girl dj's, The Nouvellas, at the Bust Holiday Craftacular. 

Her cover of "Paint it Black"  is Adam's favorite new song- listen here.

juliette greco

 

 

 

Juliette Greco is our latest French singer obsession.  She lived (or lives - she's still alive) a life that you couldn't make up.  As a young teenager she fought in the French Resistance against the Nazi occupation.  After the war, she hung around Paris with Jean-Paul Sartre and the other existentialists, smoking and philosophizing at Cafe de Flore and Les Deux Magots, becoming a through and through Bohemian.  She acted in Jean Cocteau films, read poetry at Le Tabou, got married to a famous New Wave actor (Michel Piccoli), and she recorded records; amazing, soulful records first in a folk style, and then later, in the 60s in a more grand style, aligning herself (although not quite) with the French Yeh-Yeh signers we love so much - Sylvie Vartan, Francoise Hardy, Chantal Goya.  Her whole life seems like a mini-history of France from WWII.  That one person could have participated in all the sacred parts of French life is almost unbelievable, but here she is.

lovers on the run: vol.1

 

 

Lovers on the run- one of my favorite film genres and huge inspiration behind our new collection. So I got to thinking about my favorite films from this genre and decided to do a series of posts about them all...

No.1 is "À Tout de Suite,"a 2004 film by Benoît Jacquot, an homage to French New Wave starring Isild Le Besco and Ouassini Embarek (very sexy- he was also in The Good Thief). The story begins in 1970's Paris with Lili- a bored and spoiled art student, who spends her time "doodling and daydreaming".  Her life takes a wild and drastic turn when she meets the young and mysterious Morroccan, Bada. She falls instantly in love and a violent and reckless adventure begins, continuing on through Spain, Morocco, and Greece. I saw this film back when it was released in 2004 and it just stuck with me. Just like all lovers on the run films, this one is romantic, impulsive, dangerous, and adventurous. But it's also French (love the New Wave styling), exotic, and young.

-"this small, nearly perfect film is really about the sad chains of events that can follow when people foolishly surrender to their dumbest romantic impulses."
stephen holden, nytimes.com

Feeling French

Ok...for some reason there has been a lot of talk about France lately (in my little circle of friends anyway), and specifically Paris. As some of you may know, I happen to be a little French-obsessed with my love of the language (I think more of our Every Little Counts styles are in French rather than English), film (Jean-Luc Godard, Jacque Demy, Claude Lelouch), style (Lou Doillon, Clemence Poesy), music (Francoise Hardy, Sylvie Vartan, Serge Gainsbourg), and of course the movie stars (Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve, Stephane Audran). I could go on and on, but I will stop there.

So with all that, because I haven't been to France in almost 10 years, I take every opportunity to at least feel like I'm in France. Sadly, Los Angeles is not very reminiscent of France at all, but we do have a couple of restaurants that try to bear some slight resemblance....Taix, Figaro Cafe, and The Little Next Door.

Adam and I just got back from a short trip back to NYC, and of course while we were there we had to stroll through our old neighborhoods...his being Cobble Hill, where we went to our favorite French restaurant in Brooklyn, Bar Tabac. Beer, wine, salad, fries, and a big ole' veggie sandwich on a baguette- it doesn't get any better than that!

For more French-ness:
My good friend, Jennifer just got back from her honeymoon to Paris...read about it here
The Classic Stripe Bateau (so French) at Refinery 29