Daphne Guinness and shop windows

Before we left on our holiday, my sister Annette asked me to hunt down the perfume "Daphne" by Commes des Garcons. The socialite / Guinness heiress has become something of a muse to my sister. I haven't had any luck finding it in New York or in Paris, and I've looked in all the obvious places, except the CDG shop, which I'm not brave enough to go into.

Anyway, I heard from my sister that DG has been involved with window displays for the Printemps department store, featuring 3D laser images of her made by the artist Nick Knight.








Which is a long winded way of saying that French shops have the most brilliant window displays - the ones in Printemps and the Galeries Lafayette are amazing, especially at Christmas. Even very unassuming shops take great care with their windows - we have been lured into many lovely little shops because of their windows.

Today, we went to the Musee de la Magie - name just about any subject, and it will have a museum in Paris. This fascinating little place has all sorts of old optical illusions and paraphernalia relating to magic. There is also a great magic show included in the price of admission. It's obviously a popular place for school excursions - we watched the show with dozens of eager kids, and then had to elbow the little dears out of the way to view the exhibits.

There's also the adjoining Musee des Automates, featuring many wonderful old automata. Having recently seen the movie "Hugo", we found these especially fascinating, although none were anywhere near as complex as the automaton featured in the film.

While waiting for the museum to open, we wandered up the street and around the corner. This street (the Rue St Paul) has so many great little shops (all with great window displays) - lots of vintagey / old French crap type places. I could see myself spending far too much money, so resisted the temptation to go into most of them. Next time!