From June 10 to June 21, 2013, the Grand Palais’ nave turns into the biggest Drive-In ever made in the capital and takes the name of Cinema Paradiso. In association with MK2 and Fiat, movie lovers will be able to watch again classics (from Pulp Fiction to Grease), coiled in Fiat 500, or perched on a hill specially made for the occasion. The nave will thus be able to welcome up to 1,000 persons, on the rhythm of two projections a day. For 12 days, other surprises will be offered to the public: pinball, disco roller (a roller skating rink with a free entrance), American dinner, concept-store, as well as an exhibition dedicated to the evolution of video games, “The Golden Age of Video Game”. So, put on your skates, choose dresses with flounces and other leather jackets, and you will be ready to live with Fonzie and the Beach Boys!

Drive-In Grand Palais – Cinema Paradiso, from June 10 to June 21, 2013.
Open from 11 am to late at night.
Entrance to the event: 10€ (Under 12 year-old: 5€), free animations.
Entrance to the event and to the Drive-In, presales: 19€.
Pass “Moet & Chandon Tasting”, including a Moet & Chandon flute and a parking space: 39€.

Nef du Grand Palais
Entrée Winston Churchill, avenue Winston Churchill
75008 Paris
France

Program and reservation on Fnac’s website.

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1083, it is the distance between the two most distant cities in France (Menton, in the South-East and Porspoder in Brittany). It is also the name of a brand-new French brand that creates eco-conceived jeans and sneakers, 100% made in France. Did you know that jeans can travel up to 65,000 kilometers during its making? This young brand offers you jeans or a pair of sneakers, made less than 1083 kilometers away from your home! An original concept that has attracted lovers of an urban and ecological fashion.

Beautiful products
1083 offers 100% bio cotton jeans, and eco-conceived sneakers: recycled soles, eco-textile, bio linen laces, tanned leather without chrome 6. They are available from size 4.5 to size 12, and they are unisex models. Moreover, the prices are affordable: 89€ for jeans and 99€ for a pair of sneakers.  For the record, a registration number is inscribed on the soles of each pair! It includes the brand’s name (1083), the term “BIF” (for “Born in France”), and the number 26 (manufacture department).

No doubt, this young, dynamic and ecological brand will be able to seduce you!

To buy 1083’s products, go to Ulule. This crowd funding website gives life to numerous projects and takes part in 1083’s growth.

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For its 7^th edition, the Nature Festival focuses on bugs. Invisible or underrated, they nonetheless take part in nature’s renewal. They truly are the architects or gardeners of the flora. Thus, without earthworms and other soil small inhabitants, soil would remain sterile and compact. They take part in pollination, manure’s manufacture, wood recycling or deterioration of dead materials. During 5 days, free events, organized in the country in Paris and all over France, will help you discover the stakes of bugs’ preservation. The goal is to re-discover nature and to be amazed by it with your family. Will you be part of it?

7^th edition of Nature Festival, from May 22nd to May 26^th, 2013.

Discover the complete list of events taking place in Paris.

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As the vegan revolution seems to be underway, few of us know its origins. The Gavarni Hotel looks into the subject and gives you the key elements!

The origins
The word “vegan” appeared in 1944, thanks to Donald Watson, following an ideological disagreement with the Vegetarian Society. Its exact definition is the following: “way of life looking to expel, as long as it is possible and feasible, any form of exploitation and cruelty to animals, whether it is to eat, get dressed or to any other goal.”

Vegans and vegetarians: same thing?
These two notions are above all very different ways of life and not only diets. To sum up, a vegetarian doesn’t eat meat and, sometimes, fish, shellfish and eggs, but he eats milk products. A vegan goes further by eating only products coming from the soil (fruits, vegetables, cereals etc.). Some people go even further by cutting every sort of products coming from animals (fish, meat, shellfish, milk, eggs, honey). They also refuse to wear leather, wool, silk, feathers and fur. Exploitation of animals or cruelty against them is strictly prohibited for some vegans who then refuse to go to circuses or zoos. However, this way of life is difficultly 100% applicable, hence criticism vegans have to face on a regular basis.

More information about vegans here.

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N°5 by Chanel is without a doubt the most famous perfume in the world. Worn by the biggest stars, it is the object of a free exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo (Palace of Tokyo), until June 5^th, 2013. It is the occasion to discover how it was created.

A star perfume
Thanks to pictures, archives, movies and various objects, the fragrance is here presented as a work of art that recomposes its story through ages. We learn the name of it’s creator, Ernest Beaux, who, with Coco Chanel, imagined its few flowery notes that will make of N°5 a star perfume. Launched on May 5^th, 1921, this perfume with ylang-ylang, jasmine and bergamot notes is being celebrated 92 years to the day after its birth, in one of the most important museums of Paris.

Photo credit: N°5, extract, CHANEL – Daniel JOUANNEAU – Didier ROY

Exhibition “N°5 Culture Chanel”, from May 5^th to June 5^th, 2013.
Open everyday from 12p.m to 12a.m, except on Tuesdays.
Free entrance.

Palais de Tokyo
13, avenue du President Wilson
75116 Paris
France
T.: +33 (0)1 81 97 35 88
Subway: Iena or Alma-Marceau (L.9).

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If you are looking for a typical bistro of the Thirties, rush for the Beaujolais of Auteuil. Entirely brought up to date by architect Gilles Guillot, it keeps this spirit of yesteryear with its woodworks, its sheens and its old mirrors. We discover there an authentic but refined cuisine, cooked by Chef Yvan Sternat. Let yourself be tempted with the blanquette of veal or the beef rib for 2, melting as one pleases. Besides, it is at the best butcher’s of the neighborhood, Petard, that the restaurateur buys his meat. You are salivating? You have to know that cheeses are selected at Michel Fouchereau’s, elected Best Worker of France. An address deliciously good!

Open everyday from 7:30a.m to 1:30a.m.
Starter + Main Course + Dessert = 30€.

The Beaujolais of Auteuil
99, boulevard de Montmorency
75016 Paris
France
T.: +33 (0)1 47 43 03 56
Subway: Porte d’Auteuil (L.10).

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You must admit it, when you are shopping, you are often tempted by food’s packaging even though you don’t need it! We buy with the eyes, because on the shelves, packaging is the only one charming us and making us buy. The Museum of Arts and Crafts dedicates an exhibition to packaging, “These packages that change our lives”, well deserved.

An improvement of our daily lives
Packaging revolutionized households’ comfort with its creation and especially that of women of the 50s. Solidity, easy opening or lightness, it improved daily lives. But, for several years now, the question of its recycling is being an issue. Packaging pollutes and it is necessary to do something to transform it. Compaction, selective sorting, everything is done so that households can participate in environmental protection while keeping their comfort. Scientists are even allegedly working on edible packaging for the future! An exhibition you have to go see without waiting anymore, it might change your life as a consumer!

Balls stocking – Claye – Souilly 2007
Part of the ‘Food packages, innovation is in the box!’
Space from the Materials permanent collection – ©Didier Raux

Exhibition “These packages that change our lives”, from February 19^th to June 9^th, 2013.
Open Tuesday to Sunday included, from 10a.m to 6p.m.
Late night opening on Thursdays until 9:30p.m.
Full rate: 6,50€ / Reduced rate: 4,50€.

Museum of Arts and Crafts
60, rue Reaumur
75003 Paris
France
T.: +33 (0)1 53 01 82 00
Subway: Arts et Metiers, Reaumur-Sebastopol

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Corot used to call him the “king of the skies” when Monet considered him his master and believed he was one of the precursors of impressionism. Thus, it was essential than a Parisian institution like the Jacquemart-Andre Museum shared with the public the paintings, pastels and watercolors of Eugene Boudin (1824 – 1898) in an outstanding retrospective.

Venice, slave’s dock in the evening, Customs and Salute
1895, oil on canvas, 46 x 65 cm
Quebec, Quebec National Museum of Fine Arts, Gift of the Estate Maurice Duplessis. Restauration made by Quebec’s conservation Center – ©
Photographer, Patrick Altman

An exceptional retrospective
It is the first time since 1899 that such an event dedicated to Boudin is organized in Paris. The American public was quickly appreciative of his works, and museums of the North of the United States like Washington’s National Gallery or Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts still have today numerous unique works of the artist. This pioneer artist is among the first French painters to have gone out of his studio to draw landscapes, going from his native Normandy or Venice without forgetting Brittany, Bordeaux or South of France. Being able to seize the unique atmosphere of the places he visited throughout his life, he always gave importance to the elements and brought an atmospheric dimension to his works. Represent in an innovative way light’s reflections, clouds and water was undeniably his strong suit.

Beach Scene, Trouville
1869, oil on canvas, 29 x 47cm
Madrid, Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza collection at el Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
© Colección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza en depósito en el Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza

Exhibition “Eugene Boudin”, from march 22^nd to july 22^nd, 2013.
Open everyday from 10a.m to 6p.m and to 8:30p.m on Monday and Saturday.
Full rate: 17€ / Reduced Rate: 15,5€ (with audioguide).

Jacquemart Andre Museum
158, boulevard Haussmann
75008 Paris
France
T.: +33 (0)1 43 62 11 59
Subway: Miromesnil (L.9 and L.13)

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Did you hear about the Great Paris? This multidimensional project initiated by the State and the local authorities combines economical development, employment and transportation. Its goal is to transform the city into a sustainable metropolis, innovative, united but also attractive and welcoming for the newt 30 years. In concrete terms, this is translated into the building of 205km of automatic subway lines to make the citizens’ life easier, but also the tourists’. But that’s not all! The Great Paris Express will also reduce traffic on the RER and the existing transportation while reducing congestion and cars’ pollution. The struggle against sprawl and the reduction of agricultural land is also part of the project’s goals. It will start in 2015 and we will meet you in 2030 to discover the final result!

For more information about the construction and the stakes of the Great Paris Express, go to the official website.

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Dealing with the use and the representation of flora in 19^th to 21^st century tapestry, this exhibition from the Goblins Gallery presented by the Mobilier National (National Furniture) will strongly interest artists who love nature.

An ode to vegetable nature
You have to know that at the beginning, nature was represented in plenty but not in a pictorial way on tapestry. Then, with time, it was more and more schematized and complex, little by little being inspired by work of painting or photography. Thus, it was represented in a realistic or an abstract way, almost appearing as a symbol. You will see through the exhibition Goblins by Nature to what extend this form of expression can be diverse and varied as much in tapestry as in furniture, even in lace! The journey highlights ancient and contemporary pieces made by Jean Lurçat, Monet or Dom Robert.

Photo credit: David Hugonot Petit

Exhibition “Goblins by Nature – In Praise of Greenery”, from April 9^th to January 19^th, 2014.
Open Tuesday to Sunday from 11a.m to 6p.m.
Closed on May 30^th and 31^st, 2013.
Full rate: 6€ / Reduced Rate: 4€.

Galerie des Gobelins
42, Avenue des Gobelins
75013 Paris
France
T.: +33 (0)1 44 08 53 49
Subway: Gobelins (L.7).

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