A whole day exploring Paris

So my first full day of exploring Paris and I had a lot of stuff planned. The first thing was to head to the Sorbonne university to talk to admissions. I had the breakfast buffet in the hostel and got on the métro towards la Sorbonne. I had emailed a lady in the admissions office last week and she told me I could come in to talk. When I got to the front door a guard stopped me and almost wouldn’t let me in. I had to basically prove I had an appointment and he finally let me go as long as I put my camera away (must’ve thought I was just a tourist). .
It’s a pretty big university and pretty old too (opened in 1253). After I found the right stair case and the right floor I walked into a small office with about five people working at desks. I approached the closest woman and asked if she spoke English. With something as important as college info I wanted to make sure I understood. Nope, no English. I looked around the room hopefully, but no one else spoke English either. I decided to try in French and one of

Paris

the women in the back heard what I needed and ushered me to sit down with her. The meeting wasn’t too long and luckily I understood her fine. She gave me a lot of information and all I have to do is just apply to the US department of la Sorbonne and send my transcripts to them, which will be a lot easier.
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Abidjan was in the forefront

Abidjan was in the forefront of African fashion de- sign in 1969, and Seydou found great success in the city, designing clothing for many of Abidjan’s wealthy and in- fluential women. Seydou then spent seven years in Paris beginning in 1972, where he studied European couture. He met other African artists and designers in Paris, with whom he organized the Fédération Africaine de Prêt à Porter (African Federation of Ready-to-Wear Designers), an association that seeks to promote African designers on the international market. Seydou was also one of the three founders of the Fédération Internationale de la Mode Africaine (International Federation of African Fashion), which continues to provide an important forum for African designers. Seydou found that his work appealed to African women who sought clothes made in “la mode occidentale” (Western style), and that European women appreciated his “exoticism” (Seydou; and “Chris Seydou: Le roman d’une vie,” p. 34). As Seydou explained, these women did not buy his work because he was African, but because he “brought an African sensibility” to his designs (Seydou 1993). Seydou returned to his country of birth in 1990. He came to Bamako in search of “the authors, the origins” of “the real African traditions” (Seydou 1993). He was particularly interested in bogolan or bogolanfini, a cot- ton textile traditionally made for ritual functions in rural Mali, and known as mudcloth in North American mar- kets. Seydou had begun to use the cloth while he was working in Paris in 1975–1976. He described his return to Paris in 1973 or 1974 after a visit home and finding in his suitcase several pieces of bogolan he had received as gifts. He was already familiar with the material from his childhood in Kati, but there he had associated it with hunters and local ritual practices rather than with his own interest in fashion. In unfamiliar Paris the familiar cloth was transformed into a souvenir—a reminder of the place and the people of home (Seydou 1993).Abidjan was in the forefront of African fashion de- sign in 1969, and Seydou found great success in the city, designing clothing for many of Abidjan’s wealthy and in- fluential women. Seydou then spent seven years in Paris beginning in 1972, where he studied European couture. He met other African artists and designers in Paris, with whom he organized the Fédération Africaine de Prêt à Porter (African Federation of Ready-to-Wear Designers), an association that seeks to promote African designers on the international market. Seydou was also one of the three founders of the Fédération Internationale de la Mode Africaine (International Federation of African Fashion), which continues to provide an important forum for African designers. Seydou found that his work appealed to African women who sought clothes made in “la mode occidentale” (Western style), and that European women appreciated his “exoticism” (Seydou; and “Chris Seydou: Le roman d’une vie,” p. 34). As Seydou explained, these women did not buy his work because he was African, but because he “brought an African sensibility” to his designs (Seydou 1993). Seydou returned to his country of birth in 1990. He came to Bamako in search of “the authors, the origins” of “the real African traditions” (Seydou 1993). He was particularly interested in bogolan or bogolanfini, a cot- ton textile traditionally made for ritual functions in rural Mali, and known as mudcloth in North American mar- kets. Seydou had begun to use the cloth while he was working in Paris in 1975–1976. He described his return to Paris in 1973 or 1974 after a visit home and finding in his suitcase several pieces of bogolan he had received as gifts. He was already familiar with the material from his childhood in Kati, but there he had associated it with hunters and local ritual practices rather than with his own interest in fashion. In unfamiliar Paris the familiar cloth was transformed into a souvenir—a reminder of the place and the people of home (Seydou 1993). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Wearing vintage has become

Retailers such as Selfridges, TopShop, and Jigsaw in London, A.P.C. in France, and Barneys and Henri Bendel in New York have all picked up on the trend, incor- porating vintage offers or vintage-inspired collections into their ranges. Wearing vintage has become a distinguish- ing marker of cultural and economic capital it’s unique, it’s expensive, and so onthat privileges the individual. More than money, it is free time that is required to in- vest in the laborious process of seeking, finding, repair- ing, and selling old clothing. In the latter half of the twentieth century and beyond, that free time was avail- able predominantly to those who were wealthy or who were engaged in work that was flexiblprincipally, therefore, creative. Because the vintage garment is unique, it also suggests that the wearer is individual, separate from the increasingly and obviously shallow process of fashion. Interestingly, many Hollywood celebrities have em- braced vintage principally because it is outside fashion suggestive either of anticonsumerist philosophy or of individual choice. Actresses allied with independent cin- ema such as Chloë Sevigny appear to have adopted the “trash” aesthetic to distinguish themselves from main- stream fashion. Sevigny’s protégé designers Imitation of Christ are proponents of an anticorporate philosophy not dissimilar to Westwood’s in the early 1970s. On the other hand, Nicole Kidman, one of the most prominent wear- ers of vintage in contemporary Hollywood, tends to pur- chase from retailers who position their stock as antique—timeless and culturally valuable—highlighting her sense of personal, individual style, which is suppos- edly sincere, authentic, and equally as timeless as the clothing she prefers.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Mourning rings were popular

Mourning rings were popular from about the fif- teenth to nineteenth centuries, in particular during the baroque period and eighteenth century. Memorial rings with commemorative inscriptions and portraits of the de- ceased became fashionable, and mourning rings were given at funerals as a token of remembrance; these were black or dark blue in combination with white enamel sur- rounding the name of the deceased person and their birth and death dates. In the late eighteenth century, memor- ial rings reached a peak together with the ritual of mourn- ing. Large elaborate bezels illustrated death through symbols such as the broken column, the obelisk, with the most popular being the funerary urn derived from an- tiquity. These were often accompanied by weeping wil- lows, cypresses, faithful dogs, and lamenting women in classical drapery, either diamond-studded or made of the hair of the deceased, against a dark blue enamel or glass over an engine-turned background. In contrast to this, the eighteenth century showed an abundance of fancy rings, with hearts entwined in ru- bies and diamonds, billing doves, love knots, flowers tied with ribbons or filling a basket, and other themes of na- ture, masquerade or games in polychrome choice of stones. The decorative feature of the ring culminated in the multilayered bezels and clusters of stones in rose-cut and other fancy cuts that became stylish in the eighteenth century, which continues to be popular in the early twenty-first century.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .