Fabrics Shops, Not Just For Mums Anymore...

I must have walked, cycled or ran past Marche Saint-Pierre in Montmartre a hundred times or more. Five years ago it would have been the last place on earth I would have wanted to visit 'Cor Blimey!' For me, back then, fabric shops always brought back the haunting memory of my mother and my fastidious auntie always 'touch and feeling', then sighing and talking to the late Mr. Ganter 'oh, it's beautiful, oh how lovely' and it was all very pedestrian, very mumsy, far removed from playing martial arts wars with my brother where he was Danny Laruso and I was the guy about to get licked. Strangely, it took me years to work out that I was never going to win the fights and he was always so quick to begin the crane movement upwards preparing for the scissor kick that would give me a bloody nose. So, in truth, I would have rather been getting my head kicked in than standing around a fabrics shop whilst my mother and aunt fingered fabrics.

It was not until I started making bow ties that I started to appreciate fabrics shops. There was Ganters in Kingston, Canberra which put me onto my first satins but they were not heavy enough. There was E & M Greenfield in Sydney, but the quality wasn't near enough to what I needed. There was Jansens Tissus on the Rue Fauborg St Honore in Paris but they catered for a female clientele. There were countless small country town fabrics stores in rural NSW, Australia, a dozen or so Chinese silk merchant shops in, you guessed it, Chinatown, Sydney and then there was Textiles and Lace in Rosebery - which came close, but unfortunately the silks were sturdy duchess satins, more for wedding dresses. All of this running around broke me in, so these days, when I find a  good fabric store, I treasure it. Just like teen heart throb Neil Patrick Harris said that 'theatre is not just for the gays anymore', so too fabric shops are not just for the mums anymore....

Such was the case when on a late afternoon in early July I was sent on one last errand, to find some fabric for an application which I won't divulge to you readers just yet. Needless to say, I was so glad to be back in Montmartre and this time I had my wonderful girlfriend to accompany me to the Marche Saint-Pierre at 2 Rue Charles Nodier, Paris 18eme. Marche Saint-Pierre is to Parisians what E & M Greenfield is to Sydney, but on a much grander scale. It is right in the midst of Amelie Poulain territory, below the Sacre Coeur, so it is as much a picturesque tour of Paris as it is a fabric excursion. If you are next in Paris, I would suggest if you are into that kind of thing, as I have now become, then it will be a fruitful expedition. One piece of advice I would give you is as follows - like all good department stores, the higher you go the better it gets. So don't stay on the ground floor or else you will be disappointed, it is not until you get to the 4,5 and 6th 'etage' that you will really see what they have to offer. When you are in there, say hello to Luc Houssou on the furnishings silks floor, he is one of the best dressed Parisians I met on this trip.

Don't stop on the ground floor, it is where the mothers congregate, the real 'business' starts on the 3rd floor and up