PETITS PARIS PROFILES

VICTORIA WOLFF
SULTANA OF SCARVES AND SHAWLS

I was introduced to Victoria by Maribeth Clemente, author of THE RICHES OF PARIS at a book signing at Brentanos in Paris.

Afterward several of us had dinner at the Marché de Place St.-Honoré. My clients, from Melbourne, Victoria-Texas, Seattle and San Francisco, former Hermés fanatics, have fallen in love with Victoria’s gorgeous creations.

I was early for lunch with owner Mark Williamson (a Victoria fan) at Willi’s Wine Bar just up the street and popped in for this par hazard interview and photo shoot-I love the fabric in the shot –it would make a fabulous dress.

TG: When was this company founded?
VW: I can trace it to 1875 on the French side because before that it was in Alsace and we have no archives for Alsace. My family were Jewish peddlers going from village to village with fabric on their back. Around 1875 they had the opportunity to leave Alsace become French and join their friends. They were all from the town of Bischwillers, a suburb of Strasbourg.

Eventually they all moved to little town in Normandy by the Seine called Albouef because they needed water to make the cloth. They were making woolens for coats because at the time ready-to-wear didn’t exist and everything was custom made. All the men dressed the same way: white shirt and black cloak. They also made cloth for the military and the clergy. It was an enormous business with over 100 employees because they needed those long black dresses in wool.

Business was very good until the Second World War when they had to move around. The wonderful M. Descourtis in Normandy became my grandfather’s associate. Like many cities in Normandy Alboeuf was burned down and after the war all the people who could came back and started again. My family could because Georges Descourtis ran the company and returned it to my family. However my grandmother was fed up with Normandy and threatened divorce if my grandfather didn’t move the family to Paris.

So everyone followed my grandmother who opened a big warehouse nearby on the rue Vivienne and this location in the Galerie Vivienne. This district in addition to being part of Les Halles, Zola’s “ventre de Paris” was also the garment district. They were quite successful until tailors started to disappear because custom-made clothes were not in fashion and you could find readymade at places like the Bon Marché. It was a huge change.

TG:  Was this just after the war?
VW: Yes but it didn’t really seriously affect families like mine until the 60’s, 70s and early 80’s. So they had to do something other than making cloth for tailors and the decided to do fantasy and at one point there was a crisis in European textiles and you could buy fabrics in other countries like Turkey and Wolff & Descourtis no longer had a reason to go on.

TG: Was that when you stepped in?
VW: Yes, I offered to take over the business and do it my way.

TG: Did you have any background in textiles?
VW: I had been working in fashion and upholstery fabrics.  That gave me a good idea about doing the best for the best clients and then I went to work for a Spanish fashion house that worked in linen. I was selling to high-end professionals who were making garments. When it finally came time to open my shop I knew that I would only work with the finest fabrics. I knew from my upholstery background that the best printers were Como in Italy and I have continued to buy silk there ever since. In the beginning I was selling fabric by the meter and then more and more I began to do my own squares and shawls, revisiting archives for inspiration and re-coloring them to make something unique. (Victoria only makes 25 of each pattern so it is very unlikely that you will see your scarf at the symphony, opera or your city’s most exclusive restaurant.)
 

The velvet came later. I work with two families in Lyon who weave velvet with silk chiffon and hand paint the velvet for evening wear. The silk and silk/wool scarves are for every day–something to have fun with. So Wolff & Descourtis goes on.

TG: Who are some of the famous people who wear Wolff & Descourtis?

Wolff & Descourtis
18 galerie Vivienne
01-4261-8084
Monday-Friday 11AM-7PM
Saturday 2PM-7PM
Metro: Bourse

M. GOUBERT
PARIS PRESSE KIOSQUE

What would the French do without books, newspapers, magazines, literary reviews and the kiosques that house them? Modern, colorful and crammed with over 2,000 titles M. Goubert’s kiosque in front of the bookshop La Hune and between Les Deux Magots and Café Le Flore is attacked by news hungry commuters at the morning rush hour and visited by elegant women seeking the latest VOGUE or ELLE before they settle in to Le Café Flore or Les Deux Magots for un café or a Coca Lite.

While purchasing my weekly Pariscope I was able to talk to M. Goubert while customers plopped down a few euros and grabbed their morning read.

TG: How long have you operated this kiosque?
MG: 28 years.

TG: How many different languages are represented in your stock?
MG: It varies dramatically. We have Japanese, Chinese, Indian. In daily newspapers: Spanish, Italian, German, Swiss-German, English and American-Herald Tribune and USA Today.

TG: Can you differentiate the numerous French newspapers?
MG: In France there are the National newspapers: France-Soir, Le Figaro, Le Monde, Liberation, L’Humanité and the provincial papers with large circulations.

TG: Do they have different political perspectives? For example, Figaro is reported to be in Sarkozy’s pocket.
MG: I believe that is not as true as it once was.

TG: How many copies of each do you sell daily?
MG: France-Soir, very few, Le Figaro and Liberation about 35 each and Le Monde between 150 and 200.

TG: And the Herald Tribune?
MG: Between 15 and 30 depending on the season.

TG: How did you get into this business?
MG: My mother opened it in 1973 and I worked for her as a kid. Afterward I worked in construction but after an accident she invited me to come back and work for her full-time.

TG: Where were you born?
MG: Here in the Quartier, rue D’Assas and my mother nearby in Nanterres.

TG: Who are your most famous, regular clients?
MG: Karl Lagerfeld and the Liberation cartoonist Wolinski.
TG: I remember an extraordinary Wolinski cartoon on the occasion of Billy Wilder’s death and the Palestinian intifada in 2002. The first panel is Marilyn Monroe in the white dress from The Seven Year Itch taking a phone call from President Bush apologizing to Yasir Arafat for the President’s inability to come to phone because he was screening THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH. In panel two, holed up in his bunker and being bombarded by artillery and machine gun fire he remarks that his favorite is SOME LIKE IT HOT.

GEORGE VIAUD OF LA COUPOLE

We met, of course, at La Coupole, early in the morning when the patrons are primarily Parisian. After café and croissants we discussed his long-time connection with the symbol of Montparnasse that opened in 1927 and was the playground of the legendary Josephine Baker, Kiki, Georges Simenon, Picasso and much later the daily luncheon canteen for Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre.

He has retired from his role as maitre d’ but as the official historian for the Groupe Flo he provides “tours” of both La Coupole and Bofinger as well as curating the art exhibits that periodically replace the black & white photos that cover La Coupole’s walls.

Over a recent lunch with friends from London’s Chelsea Arts Club we were surrounded by photographs of the work of Nikki de Saint-Phalle.

TG: When did you arrive in Paris?
GV: I am French but born in Lisbon and I arrived in 1972 at the age of sixteen.

TG: What was your first job in Paris?
GV: I was a groom (bellman) at L’Hotel St.-Lazare in front of the Gare St.-Lazare.

TG: When did you arrive at La Couople
GV: I arrived at La Coupole in 1990 after working way up to Maitre’d at Pont’ D’alma.

TG: Who were some of the famous regulars that you have served over the years?
GV: Lindstrom, the painter, John Kerry-he dined at Jean-Paul Sartre’s table. After all of these years La Coupole is not a bistro `a la mode but eternal- a classic.

TG: What was your most interesting or unusual experience here at La Coupole?
GV: In 1999 while working my last reveillon, Prince Hirohito, the cousin of the Emperor of Japan came in accompanied by two girlfriends of an Italian Prince and two beautiful geishas.

On one side were seated some friends including a beautiful Tahitian and on the other side a retired couple from Bobigny. Throughout the festive evening as I passed their tables they were talking and even exchanging addresses.

That is the charm of La Coupole-la joie de la vie sociale. You can be seated next to a Prince, a movie star or a worker. So when I say that nothing has changed it is just that. Montparnasse was like that in the 20s and La Coupole remains like that today?
 
Georges is also the unofficial historian of Montparnasse and will be happy to answer your questions, in French, of course and autograph a copy of his book, ABCdaire de LA COUPOLE en MONTPARNASSE (on sale at the Bistro.)

RAYMOND -CHAPTER II

I’d finally recovered from horrible jet lag and was meeting John Baxter at Les Deux Magots for a briefing.

At precisely 11AM Raymond Costes, my favorite waiter showed up in mufti, navy blue suit, red tie and his trademark 100 Kilowatt smile. He was accompanied by his wife Marie-Claire and two friends from NASA, Larry & Sandy Griffin, who had flown in expressly for this retirement party.

Large color photos of Raymond at various stages of his 28-year career decorated the walls and plates of saucisson and smoked salmon filled the interior tables with the sound of champagne corks popping resonating off the walls. Flash bulbs exploded as the press captured the moment for posterity.

One by one, clients, friends and colleagues stepped forward with gifts in hand and the French two-cheek bisou. And in an extraordinarily touching scene, every dishwasher, cook, potato peeler and janitor-exclusively of African or North African heritage and rarely seen by the public sheepishly stepped forward with a gift and received the same warmth, no more, in their hugging and kissing rituals than any of the dignitaries on hand.

I later learned that Larry had first met Raymond when he came to Paris in 1983 as part of the NASA group that brought the Space Shuttle to the Paris Air Show. Without a single word of common language they smiled and giggled their way to a friendship that has included visits to the Texas Hill Country where Larry and Sandy have a weekend retreat and Raymond’s ancestral farm in the Aveyron.

For those of you who have been served by Raymond over the years I took the opportunity to publicly thank him on your behalf for his contribution to Franco-American friendship. Les Deux Magots will now be a trifle sad for me but Raymond’s warm and playful spirit lives on in the young staff that he mentored by example.

BOOKSELLER MICHAEL NEAL

For years I proclaimed Michael to be the World’s Worst-Dressed Bookseller but he no longer wears khaki shorts with black socks and dress shoes so I’ve retired his title. He does, however, continue to recommend books and tell Borscht Belt jokes with equal aplomb.

TG: Why did you decide to live in Paris?

MN: I have been living in France since April 1974 - the day after I arrived President Pompidou died and the country went into a pre-electoral trance.  This was my first direct experience of mass hysteria.

As it happens I have never lived in Paris but in the countryside south of the capital.  Ni citadin Ni banlieusard. I couldn't live in Paris - too many distractions, to many people to talk at which would take me away from my great task in life which is to lounge around the house merely reading.  "My friends tell me that life is the thing but I prefer reading" - Logan Pearsall Smith”.

My somewhat over tolerant employer, Odile Hellier, has employed me to move the books around at the Village Voice Bookshop since 1993.  Previously I worked as a dishwasher in French restaurant for fourteen years.  I blame it all on George Orwell.  I have no one else to blame but he.

TG: Who are your favorite English-language writers? Why?

MN: Among my favorite English-language writers are the now almost forgotten American Man of Letters Edouard Roditi - Un Americain de Paris - born in Paris in1910, died in Spain 1992 about whom I am writing two different books.  One of the great neglected scholars of the twentieth century.  He spoke fluently ten languages and wrote in six, which is not a record, I know, but is definitely a start.   In my spare time I am compiling a bibliography of his various writings and now have well over three thousand items in my list.

Among the famous my main hero is George Orwell - and not just because he is the patron saint of dishwashers.   He is closely followed by Malcolm Muggeridge, Hugh Kingsmill and Jane Austen - all of whom I admire for their impeccably clear prose style.  All dead. 

Among the less dead are Rebecca West, Cyril Connolly, Anthony Burgess and TS Eliot.  I'm afraid I can't stand Ezra (Pound.)  I regularly dream of being introduced to Eliot, by the way.  And then there is Isaac Disraeli and Holbrook Jackson - the patron saints of bibliomaniacs and collectors.

I must not mention my favorite living writers - maybe they will saunter into the shop and I would be embarrassed.  (Having said that I admit one of my main fears in life would be to see Bob Dylan coming to the door...)

One way and another I have been wandering around newsagents, libraries and bookshops since the age of nine when I started reading, every week, the British comics Topper, Beezer, Dandy and Beano.

TG: Rumor has it that you have amassed a sizable collection of anti-semitica. How did you develop that fascination and what are the most notable elements in your collection?

MN: Since 1965 I have been collecting "stuff" some of which I later sell or, on rare occasions, just give away.   Presently I have only two collecting interests.  

The major collection is everything by and about my hero Edouard Roditi and the second is anti-semitica.  The second interest probably needs an explanation.  This is what happened. In the late 'sixties in my own home town in the south of England some ex-Mosleyites had formed a fringe group calling themselves something like the The Society for the Preservation of the Races of Western Man. 

Soon they were churning out a magazine and a series of pamphlets containing the usual anti-immigrant and anti-Jewish propaganda - some of it exceedingly vicious nonsense.    But intriguing nevertheless by virtue of its very existence.   Where did all these crazy ideas come from?  Did anyone ever take them seriously? Off to my beloved municipal reference library for research on racism and anti-semitism.  

I soon found myself becoming more and more confused with works of Francis Galton, Karl Pearson, Houston Stuart Chamberlain, Arthur Keith, Elliot Grafton Smith, Beddoe, Eugene Fischer, Richard Wagner and the late' Adolf's autobiographical romance MEIN KAMPF - the most influential anti-semitic book of the twentieth century.  (Can anyone deny this?)

At the library I came across the name A.K. Chesterton and wondered is this wasn't a misprint for G.K. Chesterton.  But no! Such a person existed, was still publishing and I sent my postal order to a box office number for a copy of his pamphlet THE LEARNED ELDERS AND THE B.B.C.

The pamphlet arrived within a couple of days along with some magazines, lists of books available etc. etc. Lo! and Behold! I had just purchased my first piece of anti-semtica.  Is it now almost forty years on and I have almost four thousand books, pamphlets and printed ephemera.

Stop in and visit Michael at Village Voice Books -6 rue Princesse Paris 75006

JOHN AGEE

The world’s tallest jeweler, until someone bigger, steps forward, has to cut his hair to avoid scraping it on the ceiling of his jewel-box-sized boutique. I sat on the steps leading from the street into the shop and we chatted.

John was born in South Texas where he lived until age sixteen when the family moved to Austin. “I was extremely fortunate to have parents who had the means and the inclination to travel extensively, and to also drag me along with them. 

It really formed my worldview from a very early age.  When you’re not even out of elementary school, and you’ve already seen Europe, the Caribbean, Latin America, and North Africa, suddenly remaining in Texas is no longer an option! 

My love of fashion was nurtured early on by my mother who’s a bit of a glamour queen.  I knew I wanted to make a career of it, and I knew I wanted to go to the best school for fashion design, so I went to Parsons School of Design in New York.  It was only later on that I transitioned to jewelry design which is really my true love.”

TG: When did you first come to Paris?

JA: Well, the very first time was in 1979 when I came on vacation with my mother and father.  I was ten, and we were doing the European “grand tour”, Paris being one of our last stops.  Talk about saving the best for last!

TG: When and why did you realize that you had to stay?

JA: I guess the idea of living here was always in my mind after the first visit, but a trip in 2003 kind of cemented the whole idea.  As a jewelry designer, I was ready to make a bold move for myself and my business.  I knew I wanted to be established here because it fit my personality as well as being the perfect place for my first boutique.

TG: Talk about the origins of your business?

JA: I began designing jewelry about fourteen years ago, but it took several years before I could give up the “day job” and actually be a designer full time!  I always wanted to make beautiful things in a handmade, old world sort of way, but with the result being very contemporary and eclectic.  I’d been living in LA for longer than I care to remember and instinctively, I knew Paris would be the best place in the world to showcase what I do.  And so far my instincts seem to be right!

TG: How has Paris affected your life?

JA: Oh, let me count the ways!  I’ve heard this obsession that people have with Paris described as une fièvre.  That’s what it is!  I mean, it’s not just a place where you hang your hat, it’s a state of mind.  I guess it’s made me appreciate all the details of daily life:  a glass of wine in a café, people-watching, my daily walk through the Saint-Germain to my store every morning.  I have a theory that the center of the universe is actually the corner of Boulevard Saint-Germain and Rue Bonaparte!

John Agee Paris
11, rue Jacob
Paris 75006
01-4046-9320
Closed Mondays

#4 RAYMOND

Parisians are either Floristes or Magoistes, defined by their preference of the great St.-Germain cafés. Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre sat side-by-side writing upstairs on the first floor of the Café de Flore and Hemingway often visited Les Deux Magots. Snobby French will argue that the Café de Flore has fewer tourists and others prefer the broad terraces and spectacular views of the boulevard at Les Deux Magots.

For me the decision was easy- my favorite Parisian waiter is at Les Deux Magots. I’ve been a regular at Les Deux Magots since 1995 and #4 Raymond Costes has been dispensing coffee and charm since 1980. Even back then when my French was a shadow of its current level of proficiency I was always greeted with a smile and stellar, courteous service. As my French improved our conversations have become more personal. Even the most “American” of tourists, struggling with French but polite are treated with patience and courtesy.

At the end of his ten-hour shift, starting at 6AM to set up the tables and chairs on the terrace and change into the classic French waiters uniform we sat down on the terrace for a glass of wine and a chat, in French, about his life at Les Deux Magots.

TG: Where did you grow up?
RC: In Rodez in the Aveyron. I was the oldest of seven children and worked on our family farm. We raised cows and mutton for the milk used in Roquefort.

TG: When did you first come to Paris?
RC: In 1969, after 6 months of mandatory National Service. My family had friends who owned the Café Terpsichore, a brasserie near the Opéra (Guarnier.) It is now a branch of Chez Clement. I learned the business from A-Z starting as a plongeur (dishwasher.)

TG: When did you start working at Les Deux Magots?
RC: In 1980. I walked in and presented my qualifications to the manager and two weeks later I was hired.

TG: What makes a good waiter?
RC: You have to love your work; enjoy the contact with people.

TG: Who are some of the famous people you have served?
RC: François Mitterand, before he became President. He liked our chocolat chaud, Bill Clinton and from the fashion world, Christian Lacrox and Yamamoto.

TG: What was the most interesting incident in your career?
RC: On a New Year’s Eve a man sat down at 8 PM and waited for his date who never showed up. Over the course of the evening he ate dinner, drank lots of wine and after midnight he went to his car and brought back the gift he had intended for the lady, a fur coat. He asked if I were married and when I said yes he handed me the coat for my wife.