lightning strikes twice

• Kanye West at Collette
• From The Streets To The Night exhibition at Collette (wanted some Trender Bender action there, but I guess we’re a bit late to the party)
• Landing, then heading straight to exceptionally cool house party in Le Marais district.
• France v NZ rugby at “The Quiet Man” with Ezra and 40 Frenchies. Also lowlight of Wallabies v England.
• Shopping: Muji, Zara, Loft etc. Too much to handle. Got some great Euro clothes which will probably look ridiculous in Sydney. Love them anyway.
• Shooting with Romeo and crew in Concorde.
• Seeing Mario Testino shooting in the same area the next day with Agnes Dean.
• Close encounter with current America’s Next Top Model
• Wandering through Le Marais on Sunday afternoon.
• Staying up till 3am in the hotel lobby working on a marketing assignment in my last night in Paris. Damn!

Excellent, dirty and drab looking city. Some notes:

• Great shopping, from H&M and Zara, to all of the big houses (of course) — Emporio Armani, D&G, Chanel, Dior etc etc etc. The list is endless. Superb finds at D-Magazine
• The Duomo – Italy’s second largest church and the world’s second largest gothic church (after the Cathedral in Seville, which I have also visited).
• The shame of Milan are the nasty graffiti tags everywhere. I like a good piece, but these are just disgusting.
• Getting a ticket to Versace show on Thursday 27th, with Georges.
• Sidewalking Giorgio Armani, Emporio Armani, Burberry, Fendi, Dolce & Gabbana, D&G for Trender Bender.
• Shooting with Inez & Ezra (some of his shoots on valeriaelle.com production site) on the canal and in Berea with the gorgeous Zosia and Julia.  (update: just watched the editing of the final shoots, and they are HOT)
• Meeting The Sartorialist outside Armani show.
• Mexican at Danny’s Mexican restaurant with Zosia, Ezra, Sally, Valeria and her sister
• Gelato everywhere

Venice is a gorgeous city, emerging from the water in the northern part of Italy. The canals and architecture are first rate, but it’s worth noting this place is absolutely overrun with American tourists, which while not spoiling the visit, definitely detracted from it.

Highlights:

• Canals, Gondalas, Architecture
• The Peggy Guggenheim Musuem – featuring works from Kandinsky, Picasso and Pollack, this museum is an astounding collection of mid-20th century modern artworks. The ratio of world class works across the collection is exceedingly high.
• Galleria Acadamia – an interesting and extensive look at religious artworks from the last seven hundred years or so. Exceptional works included Carpaccio’s 9 part story.

All this and more in a Venice travel story turning up in a not so little magazine in the near future penned by yours truly.

Reviewing academic papers for marketing assignments has lead to some interesting reading on types of shoppers. In particular, reading about recreational shoppers has been enlightening, because as a child of the 80s and teen of the early 90s the idea of the recreational shopper makes intuitive sense to me.

According to Brown, Pope and Voges(1), “Recreational shoppers enjoy the act of shopping regardless of whether a purchase is made or not.”

By my guess when considering Australian lifestyles, this type of shopping is on the rise, and to the detriment of general culture. The development of mega-malls like Westfield Bondi Junction means the shopping center more than ever is a destination, and an ends in itself. Does recreational shopping have any redeeming values? Social interaction I guess, and developing personal style could be a plus (though not really a very noble goal). But generally, recreational shopping feels like a big cultural void.

It is all very sad.

(1) Brown, M., N. Pope, et al. (2003). “Buying or browsing?” European Journal of Marketing 7(11/12): 1666-1684.

New Zealand are understandably upset that they’re out of the Rugby World Cup. But do they really think an inquiry is going to help? They lost a game of football for crying out loud, this sort of thing happens! Big deal!

The atmosphere here in Paris has been electric for the last 24 hours though. France is alive and really consider themselves a chance for the title.