January always feels like the longest month of the year. It feels like ages ago we celebrated new resolutions and new beginnings and already I may have failed to keep up with the days without sugar, or with ‘Dynamo’ the Parisian version of Soul Cycle.

Most days were rainy and we saw the sun for just a couple of days, but we had a few spectacular sunsets and even a day and a half of snow.

Coming to the end of this endless month, here are some wonderful things that happened…

DIOR DREAM PARADE

Maria Grazia Chiuri, Creative Director of the Dior women’s collections, invited Mimbre to participate in the Spring-Summer 2019 Haute Couture show at Paris Fashion Week. 18 female acrobats took to the runway for the specially commissioned and choreographed performance for Christian Dior’s Spring Summer 2019 (SS19) show at the Musée Rodin.

Maria Grazia Chiuri immersed herself in research for her Spring haute couture show—circus depictions in Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, Cindy Sherman, and Richard Avedon’s Dovima with Elephants, which he shot in Paris’s Cirque d’Hiver circa 1955. Chiuri also came across intensely hand-sequined costumes made by Gérard Vicaire, who has recently died: “He had a workshop here in Paris. It was all hand-embroidered—it’s really couture!” —Vogue

FOOD

Who won the Michelin Star this year?

On the 21st of January The Michelin Guide revealed its 2019 restaurant picks for France.

Here are a few of the first-time starred restaurants in Paris that I am eager to try:

Racines

L’Abysse

La Poule au Pot

Frenchie

BOTTEGA VENETA UNVEILS FIRST
CAMPAIGN BY DANIEL LEE

Ex-Céline designer Daniel Lee proposes a new vision of luxury for the Italian brand through a series of Images lensed by Tyrone Lebon:

“The campaign wasn’t staged within elaborate sets but instead shot on location on the Neapolitan island, Ischia. Nor do the models wear any fanciful makeup or flaunt over-the-top styling. In fact, in a couple of shots that aren’t shared for the following reason, they’re hardly wearing anything at all, save for a nude-toned shoe or a leather trench coat.”

—L’Officiel

“The film, directed by comedy veteran Peter Farrelly, stars Viggo Mortensen and Ali. It’s ‘inspired’ by the true friendship of Tony Vallelonga, an Italian-American chauffeur/bodyguard from the Bronx, and Don Shirley, the black pianist Vallelonga is hired to drive and protect on a concert tour through the deep South in 1962. It’s often funny, with some poignant moments and a heart that feels like it’s in the right place.” — Vox

This is a story of the trip that Don Shirley took in the pre-Civil Rights era of the 1960’s. Don Shirley was a great man and under-appreciated genius who couldn’t play the music he wanted to play, simply because of the colour of his skin. Yet he went on to create his own music that still resonates to this day.

This story, when I heard it, gave me hope, and I wanted to share this hope with you. Because we are still living in divided times, and that’s what this movie is for: It’s for everybody. If they can find common ground here, we all can.

All we have to do is talk and to not judge people by their differences, but look for what we have in common. And we have a lot in common. We all want the same thing: We want love and happiness and want to be treated equally. And that’s not a bad thing.