Design Diary: Paris
A love letter to accordions, Ispahans, and imperméables for dogs
Welcome to Design Diaries – a series that paints immersive portraits of destinations through their visual culture. Each entry explores the creative traditions – art, design, architecture, interiors, fashion, and beyond – that define a sense of place.
On our first morning in Paris, my mom and I left our hotel in the middle of a downpour and made a beeline for the nearest metro station. After a false start - we may or may not have attempted to enter the Sèvres-Babylone station from the exit - we shook off our umbrellas and made our way to the platform, a little frazzled but no worse for wear.
Our train was crowded but not packed; my mom found a seat and I stood on the other side of the car. As the doors shut, we heard the opening bars of La Vie en Rose. At first, I assumed it was just a recording, a soundtrack to distract from the clattering cars.
But after a few seconds my mom - whose ear, as an elementary school music teacher, is much better than mine - turned around in her seat, eyes wide. I followed her gaze and saw an accordion player, just a few steps away. We both hummed along, unable to keep the smiles off our faces, and my mom dropped a few euros into his basket as he switched cars.
When we exited the train a few minutes later, still grinning, my mom turned to me and declared that it wasn’t just a high of the trip (we make a habit of tracking our highs and lows when we travel), it was a high of her entire life - perhaps only tied with the impromptu, wine-fueled Sound of Music singalong we had in the limo after my sister’s wedding.
Leave it to Paris to serve up magic on the metro.
On the many charms of a Left Bank townhouse-turned-boutique hotel
Our home base for the weekend was Hotel Recamier, a 24-room boutique hotel that feels more like a well-heeled collector’s glamorous, lived-in pied-à-terre, thanks to interiors by Jean-Louis Deniot. Every design detail felt considered, from the Diego Giacometti-style chandelier in the breakfast room to the Deshoulières porcelain serveware to the Brunschwig & Fils Les Touches-patterned drapes in our room.
The pièce de résistance? The series of busts depicting 19th-century salon-hostess Juliette Recamier (whose portrait by Jacques Louis-David famously hangs in the Louvre). Each bust applies the style of another artist: wrapped and tied for Christo and Jeanne-Claude; electric ultramarine in homage to Yves Klein; and covered in chalky black lines and red, white and blue color blocks for Jean Dubuffet.
The service was as considered as the interiors: the receptionist, Cecilia, greeted us warmly and immediately remembered our email correspondence from weeks prior. We were even delighted to find a hand-written welcome note in our room, along with a complimentary box of dark chocolate and orange florentines from Angelina’s, the legendary Parisian tea room.
On the sweetest travel ritual
When my sister and I visited Paris back in 2022, we started what would soon become a favorite ritual: eating pastries in bed after the end of a busy day of sightseeing. On that first visit, we sampled airy meringues from Aux Merveilleux de Fred and tangy lemon tarts from Au Petit Versailles du Marais. We became so committed to our nightly ritual that we even had a little pastry picnic in our compartment on the night train from Paris to Salzburg.
My mom was happy to continue the tradition during our 2025 visit. This time around, we inhaled creamy carrot cake from Treize au Jardin, the iconic Ispahan from Pierre Hermé (a too-pretty-to-eat confection of rose macaroons, rose petal cream, and raspberries), and hazelnut tarts from Pâtisserie Michalak. We’ve never slept better (though our blood sugar levels may disagree).
On skipping the Louvre
On my last trip to Paris, my sister and I found ourselves sprinting through the streets of the 1st arrondissement in the dark, desperate to make it to the Louvre before the last entry time. We made it to the entrance just as the guards were starting to lock up for the night; they took pity on our sweaty faces, and wordlessly waved us through.
We had barely enough time (and lung capacity) to pay homage to Mona Lisa and Nike of Samothrace - and not even a minute to spare to attempt to squeeze in Venus de Milo - before closing time rolled around. I felt slightly better about our not-so-grand tour when I learned that a full tour of every work on display at the Louvre - spending just 15 seconds per work - would require an estimated 18 8-hour days. Even for this art history lover, the Louvre’s scale is overwhelming at best, unapproachable at worst.
My mom and I took the opposite approach: we eschewed the Louvre in favor of some of Paris’s smaller museums, including Musée Picasso and Hôtel de la Marine. We also paid a visit to Deyrolle, the legendary taxidermy shop that feels like a naturalist’s cabinet of curiosities (which I first visited as a squeamish 13-year-old on my first trip to Paris). The polished wooden shelves are loaded with every manner of creature - from creepy crawlies to game animals - all perfectly preserved.
On seeing a familiar face in an unexpected place
Our most kismet encounter in Paris? Catching a glimpse of Benjamin Franklin as we sipped aperitifs at a bistro table on the terrace at Brasserie des Prés, toasting to our last night in Paris.
We would have recognized that portrait anywhere: his pursed lips; wavy, thinning hair; and burnt umber coat, pelt draped around his neck, blown up to larger than life scale and hung in the window at Le Procope, the oldest cafe in Paris and rumored to be one of Franklin’s favorite haunts during his visits to France.
In fact, this wasn’t our first encounter with Ben in the wild; we’d stumbled upon the original portrait by French painter Joseph Siffred Duplessis years earlier while wandering The Met’s European Paintings galleries.
You may be wondering: why the Ben Franklin fetish? No, we’re not Revolutionary War stans or modern day colonialists. It’s because Ben is practically part of our family - and we have the Christmas photos to prove it.
On the eve of my sister’s 7th birthday, 25 years ago, we got the call that my great-grandmother, Esther, had passed away at the ripe old age of 93. We piled into the minivan and made the trek from St. Louis to Michigan for services, and after the funeral spent a raucous evening playing spoons (a Bailey family tradition) and musical chairs, eating birthday cake, and sifting through nearly a century’s worth of ephemera in the basement of the family farmhouse.
We were each allowed to choose one item to remember my great-grandmother by and my sister, the birthday girl, instantly knew what she wanted: the portrait of Ben Franklin. Ben has been a constant fixture in my parents’ homes ever since, quietly presiding over birthdays and graduations and holidays. Little did we know, Ben was also holding court 4,400 miles away, from the dining room at Le Procope.
On chien street fashion
Parisian street fashion may get top billing among fashion Substackers these days (exhibits A, B and C), but the style coverage is woefully lacking when it comes to our four-legged friends.
As a devoted dog mom myself, I obsessed over every dog reference we saw: this sweet pup on the cover of Elle at La Galerie Dior (that head tilt!), a caned and velvet-upholstered settee fit for a cavalier (king) in the window of an antique shop, and even these two chiens out for a joyride on mom’s motorbike.
But the crème de la crème was a spaniel sighted on a drizzly Sunday afternoon at the Marché Saint Germain, decked out in a bright yellow rain slicker with a classic striped lining. I’m not sure whether it was the wine - we were in the middle of a boozy lunch - or just my pure unadulterated infatuation with anything Breton-striped, but I was instantly taken, surreptitiously trying to snap photos from underneath the table so I could find a dupe online to order for Teddy.
Luckily, though, I didn’t have to wait 10-14 business days for international shipping or worry about tariff nonsense. The next day, as we wandered through the 7th on our way to the Eiffel Tower, we stumbled upon Two Tails, a bougie pet supply shop.
I walked in expecting to pick up a plush croissant chew toy that Teddy would tear to shreds in 2.5 seconds. Instead, I was delighted to find a full wall of outerwear: waxed tartan coats, sleek down puffers, and, of course, the same imperméable I’d seen the day before, this time in a faded green that would perfectly complement Teddy’s tawny coat.
Did I need to spend €75 on a dog’s rain coat? Absolutely not. Do I regret it? Non, je ne regrette rien.
On the chandelier in a carry-on incident
Ironically, the €75 dog rain coat wasn’t my most outrageous purchase of the trip: that honor goes to the Empire-style chandelier that I impulse-bought at a brocante, surgically dismantled in our hotel room, and somehow managed to haul home in my carry-on.
My mom is the kind of person who gives every beloved inanimate object a name (her Celtic harp is named Maggie, my grandma’s walker is named Miss Blue, you get the picture). We spent much of the weekend dreaming up names for my chandelier.
Marie Antoinette? Too grisly. Mimi, of La Bohème fame? Too tragic.
Finally, we landed on The One: Josephine, in honor of Josephine Baker, the St. Louis native and renowned French-American cabaret dancer, singer and actress who served as a resistance spy during World War II. Baker was awarded two of France’s highest military honors for her wartime service: the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honor.
While Baker’s remains are buried in Monaco, in 2021 she was honored with a symbolic burial in the Panthéon in Paris, the first Black woman to be interred alongside French luminaries including Victor Hugo, Marie Curie, Voltaire, and Rousseau.
While my Josephine certainly can’t claim this level of valor - fitting a light fixture into an overhead bin is hardly an act of heroism - she does bring a dash of Baker’s sparkling stage presence to my Chicago apartment.
Sweet memories to match the sweet pastries!