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Hemingway was getting me down. Paris was rainy and damp. We were awake at 4am (Hello JETLAG). Jon forgot his comfy pants and had to buy new ones. French ones. That looked like a sweat pants version of skinny jeans. Our shower was a bathroom and our bathroom was a shower. The bakery downstairs was closed on Friday, denying us our deux Pain ou Chocolat fix (we needed it, we needed it BAD). Clearly something fabulous was needed to brighten our day! So to shake off all the horror of skinny sweats, gloomy day, general funk, and Hemingway macho we decided to go visit something purty: FANCY BLING!

“L’Art de la Haute Joaillerie” will be at Les Arts Decoratifs in Paris from September 20^th 2012 through February 10^th 2013. Les Arts Decoratifs is a separate museum that is connected to a far wing of the Louvre so it’s easy to add it on to a day (or 3) spent there. If you have the chance to visit Les Arts Decoratifs before February 2013, please see this exhibit…the rest of the museum is a little random. However, they were in the process of installing a Star Wars exhibit while we were there so apparently things are looking up.

Back to the BLING. The exhibit is described as follows: “All the daring of the creations of Van Cleef & Arpels will be highlighted in the Nave at Les Arts Décoratifs, with 400 pieces that have made the fame of the French High Jeweler since 1906.” Many of the pieces shown were from private collections – including jewelry worn by Elizabeth Taylor, Maria Callas, the Duchess of Windsor, and various folks from the royal houses of Monaco, Iran (uh, former Royal house), and England. There were also plenty of “red-carpet” pieces that were showcased (but not owned) by various Hollywood celebrities.

The setting of the exhibit is highly designed and was created and installed by Jouin Manku Agency. They did a very nice job under challenging circumstances (the exhibit is basically in a part of the museum’s lobby). In addition, they have created just the kind of setting needed to keep some people (uh, but not ME) from running around and screaming OMG at every Beautiful Shiny. It was a fairly masculine setting so all the fellows dragged along didn’t feel like they were hanging out in a frilly jewelry box. The area is very dimly lit and quiet with spotlights on pieces themed by decade. It was clearly an ART exhibit…not a “pretty stuff” exhibit. They also have some odd but effective “glass tube” gallery showcases with the jewelry suspended to be viewed from all sides. The spotlights and curved glass tube cases make it very hard to take pictures, which I am sure is cleverly planned for security reasons AND to ensure high sales volume of the exhibit catalog (yup, we bought one). I did get a few shots so you can get the general idea:

I’ve included some pictures of the more famous jewelry we saw (Duchess of Windsor zipper necklace, Princess Grace of Monaco engagement tiara/necklace, Princess Charlene of Monaco engagement “Ocean” tiara/necklace, and Elizabeth Taylor “Daisy” necklace (photos not ours):

Seeing all of the jewelry in person was fun- and it was a quick and easy museum visit. We left with a much better understanding of the art of jewelry (or jewelry art?). I have to admit it was also neat to see how cleverly many of these highly expensive pieces convert into multiple-use items (tiaras to necklaces, necklaces to bracelets, pins to earrings etc). Because, you know, I guess it’s nice to see that the people who can afford this kind of serious bling are getting GOOD VALUE for their million dollars?

Links to Van Cleef and Arpels site and exhibit site:

http://www.vancleefarpels.com/ww/en/the-maison/2/Icons

http://www.artdelahautejoaillerie-vancleefarpels.com/

The whole point of vacation is leisure right? Well, we leisured it up on turbo over the past two days. And by “leisure” I mean “sleep”…the ultimate leisure. We had a day trip planned to see the Cathedral in Chartres, for which we had proactively bough train tickets the day after we arrived in Paris. Planning carefully in advance is not really our thing and today proved exactly why: excessive over-leisure caused us to miss our train. By the time we were up and moving we were 30 minutes away from train departure time with a 45 minute Metro trip to get to the station. We were able to switch to a train an hour later and only had to spend a bit of time hanging out in the Montparnasse Starbucks (not a winner). The delay crunched our Chartres touring time a bit…which also, as it turns out, worked out fine.

Chartres is a charming small town that is dominated by a huge, and famous, cathedral. Imagine, say, The Pentagon plunked down in Petaluma, CA and you’ve got the basic idea. There’s been some sort of religious building on the site since before Roman times…with the applicable religion rotating over the years to suit the current population. Seems like “christian’ rotated in sometime around 550 and stuck. The majority of the current cathedral was constructed from 1194-1260. That’s apparently considered “fast” and accounts for most of the church being in the same style. However, only one spire was completed. The second spire was not added until 1513 and you can see why the style issue is important. Both spires are nice…but they are NOT similar.

Chartres Cathedral is considered unique because of its consistent style and also because it has had very few changes since the 13th century. In fact, most of the stained glass windows are ORIGINAL. Just to set a little context, these windows were in place while the US was still owned and operated by Native Americans only. Christopher Columbus and his boats were still several hundred years away from sailing the ocean blue.

Another unique aspect of the cathedral is the large labyrinth near the entrance. Apparently the full labyrinth can only be seen when all the chairs are removed every Friday. Since we did not research carefully and therefore arrived on a Wednesday, most of what we saw was in aisles and under chairs:

The full thing looks like this (photo not ours):

The cathedral is in the process of being carefully restored. You can see the difference between those sections that have been completed and those that have not in the two pictures below:

We spent nearly two hours walking around but because of timing were not able to tour the crypt (Jon loves a good pile of bones and relics). As we were deciding whether to eat or tour the town the heavens opened up with some serious rain, for which we were – of course – not prepared. So town sightseeing was OFF and eating was ON. We chose a small, quaint, very French brasserie in the small, quaint, and very French old section of town. We were enjoying a yummy and very large, quaint, French meal when we were yanked right out of all the quaint Frenchess by the aural assault of HOT STUFF (I need some HOT STUFF baby tonight). There’s nothing like a good dose of Donna Summer to remind you that all is not quaint, French, and stuck in the 13th century. Still, there are some places and times when you just aren’t prepared for Disco.