First day at Metal Flaque

Sleepless nights in Paris are beginning to take a toll on my body. I just can't seem to adjust to the time change here and it doesn't help that this morning after just a few hours of sleep, I wake up with a full blown cold on my first day at Metal Flaque. I so wanted to hit the snooze button, but got up and got ready for work. It's like deja vu. It seems as though every time I start an internship, I get sick with a cold on my first day. It happened last time too at DvF. :(

I'm glad I left to go to work somewhat early because I got lost looking for the store. Luckily, these nice ladies pointed me in the right direction after wandering around for awhile. I arrived just in time and met Lillian Postaire the buyer for the store and her staff Veronique, Elisa and Marion. I was in awe of the store, the clothes were amazingly beautiful especially the wedding dresses! And so much for these $160 shoes I bought that I thought would be comfy to wear. OMG within an hour I had to take them off and change into my flats! Thank God I brought them with me otherwise I'd probably have to amputate my feet! *sigh* It's so hard to be a girl sometimes; the torture we go through to look nice. Well I'm over trying to look nice, I just want to be comfy and keep my two feet!

Our first client of the day was a girl from Australia. She recently got engaged and was on holiday with her fiance and friend to go to a wedding in the South of France. She thought it would be a good opportunity to come to Paris to try on wedding dresses! How exciting! I love the story. How cool is it to just fly to Paris and try on beautiful wedding dresses from some of the top designers?! She was leaning towards a beautiful Monique Lhuillier dress. Apparently in Sydney, Australia it would be more expensive to buy one of these dresses and cheaper for them to buy in Paris.

The boutique carries a lot of amazing designers like Oscar de la Renta, Monique Lhuillier, Carolina Herrera, Jenny Packham, Vera Wang, Georges Hobeika, David Fielden, Leila Hafzi, Ugo Zaldi and many more.

I also got to observe Marion, a young tailor of the boutique. I really liked talking to her and watching her do some alterations. Hopefully I can learn more from her since I'd really like to perfect some tailoring techniques. She was telling me she worked temporarily at L'esage (that well known atelier for embroidery I mentioned in my previous post) and helped work on the Chanel fashion show! I thought that was really cool and I cannot wait to take a course at L'esage! She was originally from Lyon, in the South of France where she studied fashion. Lyon is also known for their lace and silk shops, but there are more opportunities for her in Paris.

I had an hour for lunch and went to explore a bit since I work right by the Louvre. Paris is starting to get packed with tourists! But it was definitely a beautiful day to do some sight seeing. I didn't know what I felt like eating and wanted to just see what was around the area, but I ended up eating at Sapporo, this Japanese restaurant for some Miso Butter Ramen. It was delicious!

I went back to the boutique after lunch and did some computer work using excel and of course it's in French, so it took a little getting used to. There were also some French IT people helping to install this ipad system into the boutique where clients can have photos of them taken from all angles to see what the dresses look like on them. It was pretty interesting and innovative I thought.

Since it wasn't too busy of a day, I went downstairs to where all the wedding dresses were and played a little bit of dress up! I couldn't get over how beautiful the dresses were and the amazing craftsmanship! I just wanted to swim in all the beautiful fabrics! I started to try some of my favorite designs on. I felt like Cinderella and Carrie from Sex and the City when she was trying on all these beautiful dresses for the photo shoot in the movie! My favorite was the Vera Wang dress that was 10,650 euros!!! Then I went on to try the Oscar de La Renta and Monique Lhuillier dresses that were all way too big on me, but hey when will I ever get the opportunity to try on or play with such luxury! I think I had a little too much fun playing make believe down there, but hopefully one day I can come back to really try on a dress for my big day!

Veronique was starting to feel bad for me because she could tell how sick I was getting and how miserable I felt. She sent me to the pharmacy and told me to get a few meds she recommended, cuz the ones I got weren't working! Then she let me leave work a little early to go home to rest. Thank God cuz I was so tired and sick! Lucky for me, tomorrow is a holiday in France so I don't have to go to work! They have holidays here like every other week! I could get used to this!

I went home to try to sleep a little. What I wouldn't give to just have a bowl of chicken noodle soup and some strong meds! But guess I'll just sleep it off. :( I am going to spend the whole day tomorrow in bed and hopefully sleep! Times like this makes me miss home. So I probably won't have anything interesting to write for tomorrow. Going to head back to bed now...Bonne nuit! Bisous Bisous! oxox