First painter and then photographer, Émile Savitry makes the artistic and cultural life of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Montparnasse districts the privileged frame for his shots. Artists’ studios, jazz cellars, café terraces and restaurants on the Left Bank are the theatre for his human comedies. Humanist photography in post-war Paris Along with Robert Doisneau, Willy Ronis and […]

Jeans are five-pocket trousers made of denim: a cotton twill fabric with unbleached weft threads and indigo warp threads. From Nimes to the American spinning mills Denim originates from a town in the south of France from which the fabric takes its name: “de Nîmes” (literally “from Nîmes”). From the 17th century onwards, Nîmes was […]

“I have often seen, in the past, at the back of the bar on the Pont-Royal in Paris, Leiris and Bacon together, leaning towards each other in complicit conversation. I liked to watch them, Leiris being serious and Bacon trying to be.” Philippe Sollers, Francis Bacon’s Passions. Bacon was only lately recognised in France. His […]

In the early 1970s, Claude Sautet met Michel Piccoli. For a whole decade, the director filmed the actor in The Things of Life, Max and the Junkmen, Vincent, François, Paul and the Others, and finally Mado. Sautet met Piccoli through the composer Philippe Sarde, who composed the music for most of his films. The director […]

On the outskirts of Paris, an upright city, an airport concourse, American tourists, Monsieur Hulot, a missed appointment, endless back and forths, a lift, a Household Arts Show, misunderstandings, reflections, open-space offices, an American girl, preparations for the Royal Garden restaurant opening night, cocktail jackets and dinner jackets, dancing all night, mornings at the drugstore […]

Born on may 20th, 1932 in Wiesbaden, Dieter Rams is a German industrial designer considered as one of the founders of the functionalist school of industrial design. His work is closely linked to the Braun company, for which he designed radios, record players, scales and calculators from 1955 to 1995 A synthesis between Ivy League […]

In 1927, Carl Jung had a dream about Liverpool – citing it as “the pool of life.” Literally, it’s true, as England’s North West city is historically a major port for trade and exploration. But Jung’s phrase is equally apt for Liverpool’s cultural scene, because the city has mastered an output of music which, to […]

“The greatest club of all time” – Ahmet Ertegun, Atlantic Record New York founder, 1977. Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager decide to open a new nightclub in 1977: Studio 54 is born. Located at 273 West 54th, the club quickly became the temple of Disco music. It was a time of recklessness and the opening […]

In the early 60s, the first wave of Japanese students born after the Second World War entered university. Japan is then in economic expansion and takes part in this new consumer society. These young people became the Miyuki-zoku – the “Miyuki tribe”, named after a trendy street in Tokyo. The gakuran: traditional uniform of Japanese […]

“In [Joy Division’s] songs, ordinary life achieves an epic grandeur. There’s no bombast or emotional theatrics; instead there’s a modernist starkness as pared down as a Samuel Beckett play.” – Simon Reynolds, The New York Times Joy Division (originally titled Warsaw) formed in Salford, Greater Manchester, in 1976. After a slight re-shuffle on drums, it […]