Our trip to Paris was great... It was really mild weather and it was so nice walking around the city. Do you know that even this time of year, they still have all the outdoor street cafes with chairs and tables??? I don't remember that!!! It seems the French have discovered those standing gas heaters and they avail themselves of them everywhere. Even ones that are attached to the building, so you can sit outside at the cafe and still be toasty and watch the scenery/people go by! I love that!
The launch of Campion's textile collection with Jim Thompson went really well.
Campion was busy with press interviews and schmoozing potential buyers and distributors. We didn't stop the whole time we were there. I did get to take Campion to my favorite museum from when we lived there, that is the Cluny museum which has the famous tapestries of the Lady and the Unicorn. So heartwarming to return there and be with Campion! We also went up to Montmartre one afternoon, sat and watched the artists, and had steak frites!
We were staying in the St. Germain area, a neighborhood I didn't really know, so Campion took me around mostly around there, and i really loved it. Very bohemian in a way. We also went to an AMAZING exhibit at the Pompidou Center of Yves Klein. I knew him, but I didn't realize what a performance artist he was. Not only is he famous for his cobalt blue paintings, but he also would have naked women roll around in paint and then shimmy all over a blank canvas. And he filmed it all -- the exhibit was multimedia, really outstanding. Campion also convinced me to wake up early on Sunday to go to the Marche aux Puces (flea market). It was fun, but boy it had a lot of fleas, and termites I would say!
From Paris, we went on to Moscow. What a visit that was. Moscow has completely changed in the last 10 years. I thought I had seen enormous change from when it was still Soviet and I was a student there, to when I was there about 10 years ago, working there in the mid 1990s. I thought Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and the free market transition was huge change, I had no idea. Moscow is now a BOOM TOWN of Russian oil and gas money. It is unreal. Ferrari dealerships, luxury boutiques, condo skyscrapers going up all over the city, and very expensive prices. It was like we stepped into the book "Animal Farm" by George Orwell all upside down.
Millionaires are being born every day, apartments in downtown Moscow cost more than a co-op on Park Avenue, and real estate prices just keep going up, up and up. Campion met with people from the Russian version of Esquire Magazine about doing a showhouse for them later this year. It looks promising, but not sure yet whether that will materialize. We also met with Russian Architectural Digest, and one of the top Russian real estate developers. Campion is keen on getting some work in Moscow as there is a huge potential pool of clients with insatiable appetites for Western design and luxury goods. (Not necessarily American -- the Russian fascination with all things American is no longer. The days of when Russians got excited to meet an American are long over. Now they eat up Italian, French, Spanish, styles and clothing and cars, etc. But Campion being American isn't the emphasis in demand for his services there, rather it is that he is a Western architect that caters to clients of all nationalities in and out of New York City...)
We did try to do some touristy things in Moscow in between meetings, visited the Kremlin, went shopping on the cobblestone Arbat street, and ate at hip and fashionable restaurants. It was INSANELY cold over there, really really freezing. Took your breath away when you walked outside - like in the movie "Day After Tomorrow" when the arctic air descends on the NY Public Library.
Because we had to change our plane tickets due to the BA strike, we flew back through Brussels. Overnighted there at the house of Campion's aunt. Very nice, home cooked gastronomie, but i was feeling the effects of a stomach virus that had me very ill (call it not Montezuma's revenge, rather Moscow's revenge!) Am just now getting over it, finally. Arriving back in the U.S. I realized I was mentally exhausted from all that there was to take in everywhere, and also of course a bit physically exhausted as we didn't get much sleep. What a couple weeks.
Some photo highlights!
PARIS
MOSCOW
