Craftspeople and Artisans and Passages, Oh My! – Saturday 30 September

It’s amazing the craftspeople and artisans you find joyfully doing their work and creating beauty in the 200-year-old glass-roofed “Passages” in Paris. Just two stories from this morning….

About a year ago I read about the only umbrella repair guy in France, Thierry Millet. His tiny almost-50-year-old shop called PEP’S (where he also sells a vast variety of regular and folding umbrellas and canes) is in the ancient stone-paved Passage de l'Ancre in the 3rd arrondissement, about a mile from my apartment. I also read that he fabricates an Eiffel Tower umbrella of his own design, and I just had to see it for myself! So I shuffled over there this morning and was smitten! He doesn’t take credit cards, but I had just enough cash in my purse to buy one of his masterpieces (with enough left over for a coffee on the way home!). A charming 2-minute video about him was produced this summer – check it out here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNsrU-t0lf0
And here are his website and Facebook page:
https://www.peps-paris.com/reparateur.html
https://www.facebook.com/maisonpeps/

On my way to PEP’S I walked through the Passage du Bourg l'Abbé for the first time. At its eastern end I found big slabs of rough-hewn tree trunks outside the atelier of the last cabinetmaker in central Paris, Ivan Lulli, who has worked in this shop in this location for 30 years. He studies a slab or chunk of wood to discern its characteristics and then designs a piece based on what the wood tells him. Sometimes he collaborates with architects on custom pieces and takes commissions from individuals. Golly, I wonder what it would cost to have him make something for me? Of course I’d have to factor in the shipping, and I really can’t think of something I “need,” but ….

A group called “les Petits Frenchies” did an article about Mr. Millet this spring.  Read it here (it's in French but you can easily run it through Google Translate):   https://fr.petitsfrenchies.com/ivan-lulli-dernier-ebeniste-du-centre-paris/

About 20 “Passages” remain in Paris (many have been destroyed). I’ve visited only five of them, and some fairly superficially. Some are rough-and-tumble like Passage de l’Ancre and some of them quite elegant and fabulous and haute-everything like Galerie Vivienne. Maybe I should organize a future trip around studying (and shopping! and dining!) them all, one or two a day. I’d better get to work on that plan!