Author(s): Valerie Weill

Fashion

In an increasingly globalized, anodyne world of shops and shopping experiences, Paris boutiques remain distinctive and unusual. This lovingly assembled collection of Parisian shops and shop windows - from the bizarre to the everyday - reveal and revel in the sheer poetry and beauty of the ordinary, showing us what our eyes usually fail to see. These pictures all tell tales, whether they show a repetition of one object, an accumulation of different items, an explosion of clutter that seems to swallow the shopkeeper, or an artfully crafted display. They invite the viewer to ask questions: who their makers are, what their story is, what they are trying to convey. These are portraits of both private and public worlds, based on real-life settings. As you turn the pages, you automatically make links between the picture, the accompanying business cards and your own experiences, memories and stories - this is a sourcebook for inventing stories.