Decorative Arts Museum (Musée des Arts Décoratifs)
Right next door to the Louvre is a wonderful excuse to
indulge in some exquisite ‘window shopping’ in a museum which showcases the
works of some of the world’s most accomplished creators of fashion, advertising
and decorative art.
Decorative Arts
Museum
The Decorative Arts Museum houses a permanent collection of
objects, furniture and fashion spread over approximately six centuries, but its
real draws are the temporary exhibitions with a strong emphasis on fashion and
advertising in the twentieth century. Here you see fashion, history and art
become intimately intertwined at the highest levels.
Inside Decorative
Arts Museum
Current exhibitions running until the autumn of 2012 include
the history of the advertising campaign of Pernod Ri-card’s popular French
aniseed liqueurs, contemporary ceramic jewellery, trompe l’oeil wallpaper
designs, the sumptuous jewels of Van Cleef & Arpels and the most popular
Marc Jacobs-Louis Vuitton exhibition, which retraces the history of the two
creators and their influence on fashion.
The museum was completely revamped in 2006, and modernity
and antiques mingle in displays that show off the latest lighting and display
techniques. A treat for the senses that is so entrancing that one can wonder
whether with this display of fashion and design history so close to the heart
of Paris’s most prestigious fashion and design boutiques, there is not some
sort of a conspiracy at work here. Come here if you want to persuade your
significant other that a shopping spree in Paris is a wise exercise in asset
management: after all, whatever you might end up purchasing could be a
potential investment worthy of a museum one day...
Les Arts Decoratifs, 107 rue de Rivoli (main wing) Métro:
Tuileries (line 1) or Palais Royal Musée du Louvre (lines 1 & 7)
Open Tuesday to Sunday, 11 am to 6 pm; Thursdays open till 9
pm, temporary exhibitions only
Entrance: $10.7-18 lesartsdecoratifs.fr/english-439/
The Fragonard Perfume Museum
While shopping in the large department stores in the centre
of Paris, you may need a quiet retreat from the throngs of tourists. If so,
slip into a nineteenth-century townhouse just behind the Paris Opera and enter
the quiet and fragrant world of the Fragonard Perfume Museum. This museum
houses part of the private collection of Jean François Costa, grandson of
Eugene Fuchs, founder of the French perfume house Fragonard. Costa was a
passionate collector of perfume and cosmetic memorabilia, and his collection
traces three thousand years of mankind’s history of pampering itself through a
remarkable display of perfume-distilling machines, Graeco-Roman amphorae,
eighteenth-century porcelain perfume holders, nineteenth-century lipstick
holders and powder compacts, as well as all sorts of toiletry and beautifying
accessories through the ages. They say that smell is the greatest repository of
memories, and the Fragonard perfume shop at the exit of the museum offers the
perfect opportunity to purchase a souvenir that is bound to etch this
particular visit in your mind.
Fragonard Perfume Museum, 9 rue du Scribe Métro: Opéra Open
Monday to Saturday 9 am to 6 pm; 9 am to 5 pm on Sundays
Entrance: Free fragonard.com
Musée du quai Branly
Glass, air, light, wood, water, earth: a symphony of
elements comes together in Paris’s newest museum to celebrate the arts and crafts
of Asia, Oceania, the Americas and Africa. Built on the banks of the Seine, the
quai Branly Museum is an ideal complement to a visit to the Eiffel Tower, just
next door. The collections alone are impressive: hundreds of thousands of
objects, statues, murals, musical instruments, textiles and photographs,
celebrating the cultural and historical diversity of the planet. They are
displayed in geographical order in the four buildings of the museum, erected in
the middle of an 18,000 square metre garden oasis in the centre of Paris. The buildings
themselves are works of modern art: walls of glass, a circular corridor on
stilts, a wall covered in vegetation, a building made of multi coloured cubes,
light and water displays that illuminate the façades of the museum at night.
For those who do not want to stay indoors in silent contemplation, throughout
the year the museum organises live performances, workshops, concerts and guided
tours, based on a cultural theme related to the museum’s core mission: to bring
to Paris the culture and ethnography of the world. The museum is also keen on
promoting the idea of culture as part of a day or evening out amongst friends:
there is a café, a bar and a rooftop restaurant with a view of the Eiffel
Tower, the perfect place for that friendly rendezvous.
Inside The
Fragonard Perfume Museum
Perhaps most important of all, this is an ideal museum to
visit with children: it is light, airy, the many interactive features on each
exhibit will delight the younger visitor, and art and crafts or discovery
workshops are offered to children on a regular basis. The ramps and wide
corridors make it ideal for navigating with a pram, and unlike many Paris
museums a serious effort has been made to ensure excellent disability access.
Musée du quai Branly, 218 rue de l’Université or 27 quai
Branly
Métro: Alma Marceau (line 9). Boat Bus: exit at the Eiffel
Tower
Open Tuesday, Wednesday, Sunday 9.15 am to 7 pm; Thursday to
Saturday 9.15 am to 9 pm
Entrance: $13.5-20.3 quaibranly.fr/en
