Feel free to feel yourselves like at home

Imagine this: you're in the heart of Paris, looking for a cozy place where to treat your senses with some delicious gourmet plates and warm drinks.. Your walking around the 3rd district, the area full of crowdy bars and chic restaurants but none of them really seems to invite you in. You're passing them all... Until.. Right there, right at the back of the 404 restaurant and Andy Wahloo cocktail bar you see it.. The Place To Go. This venue, called Derrière (= back, in french) presents itself as a typical Parisian family apartment, literally, and has that special atmosphere which is hard to resist. Decoration of a French baroque house, Derriere is equipped with numerous "little touches" which makes the guests feel as if they're hanging out at a friend's place or just enjoying themselves on a small house-party.

Little wooden chairs, messy bookshelves loaded with huge piles of books, an old ‘baignoire’, a bed placed in the middle of the room space and lots of other objects do guarantee the place a unique coolness and an atmosphere you hardly could get from other places. Upon arrival you are welcomed by the staff and get to choose your sitting according to your mood: a settling in the traditional dining room, playing ping-pong in the salon, watching a film in the ‘movies’ designated area or having a cocktail in the boudoir. The venue also offers a more quiet area on the upstairs, which functions as a bedroom, and guests can go to relax.

Well, You think this is it? A place like this coulnd't exist without a secret room, a delicately discrete fumoir where smoking is "off the record", the entrance is from an old baroque wardrobe door covered with mirror (the one you see on the picture above). Huh, pretty exiting, imagine to meet someone you like at this restaurant and by the end of the evening, after many tickeling looks, you suddenly find yourself with that person in the secret room.. Enough of my imagination, my point is, this place is fantastic for all kinds of dates, birthdays, weddings, themed parties.. what ever you imagine to celebrate.

I personally like this idea of a venue a lot. Spending your evening in a place like this is a perfect way to enjoy a good company and just to relax in a friendly-homie ambient. No stress of have to be extra polite or extra-chic. It surely is on top of my list of places where to go in Paris.

What do you think of the place?
Would you eat there or you'd rather prefer just a cocktail or two?

INFORMATION:

69, rue des Gravilliers 75003 Paris
info@derriere-resto.com
+ 33 1 44 61 91 95
(a reservation is required at least 5 days before the date)
* the prices are circa from 45euros, a normal menu, up to 70euros for à la carte

PS! My dear french readers and especially those from Paris, have you ever been there? If so tell us about your experience:)

INSPIRATION: The Grace in the Nature

This wonderful creature has been an inspiration source for my drawings for a long time .. So gracious, so colourful, so elegant..
So.. I wanted to share this divine beauty with you.
I think there is no greater inspiration font than Nature is.
What you think?

*these beautiful pictures are not shot by me (though I wish they were!). I did find them from here and there, so if someone feels I'm violating something, please let me kindly know:)

He's a Glorious Bastard

A few weeks ago, when I attended a design-meeting with ex-students at the faculty of architecture (L.Quaroni, Università di Sapienza), I heard this great story about a young designer who auto-commissioned himself to design products for famous luxury brands and after publishing them on his site risks badly to be sued. Heard this story before? If not, it's something you won't want to miss, the guy's a freaking genius! I didn't catch his name on the meeting and then kinda forgot about him at all, until yesterday while surfing on yatzer.com I came across his new project. About that later. First let me tell you his story.

Ito Morabito (1977), son of a well-known french designer and retailer of luxury goods Pascal Morabito, at the age of 21 decides he couldn't bare spending 10 years inching his way up the career ladder and drops out of design school. Invents the pseudonym Ora Ïto to carve out his own identity and without using his father's financial sources neither connections starts to make himself a name. After different small jobs (too small for his talent, obviously) (he also worked for the shoe master himself- Roger Vivier, God.. I love his creations!) ... arrives the crucial point of his career: he virtually designes made-up products for mega brands like LV and Apple and so on and a selection of these 3D projects gets published on magazines like Crash and Jalouse. The media reaction is electrical and his site gets over 200.000 clicks per day, on the top of everything, desperate customers start inundate the luxury goods companies asking for the products which never actually existed. Companies like LVMH (Moët Hennessy/Louis Vuitton) are really infuriated for the caos created and strongly considere the possibility of sueing the young designer. Fortunatelly no legal actions are made, the designs were well-received by the consumers, no actual harm was made. Instead.. many (clever) brands try to hire him and soon enough Ora has a pretty long list of clients between who to choose.

Check out his works:

This curious item above is his latest project thanks to which I rediscovered him in the first place.

Guerlain's new parfume "Idylle" is a mystical scent in a tear drop shaped 18 K gold bottle which the young designer managed to encapsule perfectly in precious Baccarat crystal (30,000 euros, if interested). In order to smell it you have to break it. Quite expensive toy.. I think I'll pass this one;)





"Abstract", jewelry line for Cristofle.





This is the first jewelry collection made by Ora Ito.




"Fly", Chaise Lounge by Ora for B&B Italia.

Ora Ïto for LaCie.




Now this is farmost the coolest USB & FireWire hub I've ever seen in my life. Works both for Mac and PC. The lowest price is 89€.



A Hard Driver.
Pretty glam, huh?
LaCie.






Oxygenwater.
I LOVE THE SHAPE OF THIS BOTTLE!
Like a magic potion or something.





Heineken, The Green Line.
Isn't this a fancy design for a bottle of beer?
Drinking beer can now be almost classy thanks, to Ora Ïto.




Bookshelf "Ecco" made entirely of recycled material, Ora for Artelano of Paris. There's also a white version.





"Evolution" is the name of this armchair. Zanotta.



"Arborescence", home accessories collection for Cristofle.

ELECTRICAL CARNIVAL

Yesterday it was Martedi Grasso- the big Carnival Day. It was such a blast!! We celebrated it at the Akaba (which is in Monte Testaccio, the big clubbing "hill" in Rome), they're playing mostly electro music. It was really crazy, the costumes were great, lots of Amy Winehouses, Jack Sparrows , Audrey Hepburns, Heath Ledgers as Joker and ofcourse.. Lady Gagas. My friend got a brilliant idea and dressed herself up as Andrea "Andy" Sachs from the Devil wears Prada, she pulled the look perfectly off! and me... well as all was planned on the last minute I kinda forgot to think about the costume. There were two quite bizarre costumes: one woman clearly imitated Brigitte Nielsen (for a moment we already thought it was REALLY her) and other two men were dressed up as yellow lego pieces!

HOW WAS YOUR CARNIVAL?

PS! Fish'n'Chips played the music in one of the spaces, check them out on myspace (click!)

I've Missed You!

Vicy playing a tourist. I think I'm gonna shoot more pictures of fashion in Rome from now on..

My Darlings! Finally I got the chance to dedicate myself a little on my blog too. I've missed so much blogging ! Unfortunatelly I've been pretty busy with school, but after weeks of studies it seems I'm catching up. I've almost finished my Lake House project which I've mentioned before, some of you may remember, and soon enough I'm gonna post it here. Ohhh after months of fatigue... It's nothing special and I would have done many things differently now, but as it is my first project I had no idea of the possibilities.. and okay, I'll discuss it later on with all the pictures and stuff! In the meanwhile I'm gonna dedicate this post to a lovely afternoon walk we took with Vicy (my mom) in the center of Rome. The Spring is already here, I can feel it in the air and even the mimosa is already blooming!!

This is Santa Maria Maggiore (check wiki!), one of the four very first basilicas built after the "legalization" of Christian-religion in the 313 AD.

The gold in the ceiling decoration is the first ever exportated to Europe from the New Continent (America).

An absolute tourist must-see. I like it the most in the night or in the early morning, with no people messing around... (It's Fontana di Trevi, mostly famous for the sexy pool-scene that Evita Ekberg did for the La Dolce Vita, read the post "La Ex Dolce Vita" here!)



This is Sant'Andrea al Quirinale (read about it on wiki!) which we had just finished analyzing in our art history class. A modest example of baroque church, made by Bernini-the-maestro-himself! Really lovely in my opinion.

Piazza delle Quattro Fontane, on our way to the Quirinale, where the President's house is. (check wiki!)
This is another typical baroque-styled church, San Carlino, made by Borromini, main "frenemy" of Bernini, I'll tell you about some legends which are told about these two great artist, in the future;) Anyway this church is really exotic, with a spectacular chapel, absolutely a must see and which I haven't got the chance to do myself, yet. It's closed almost all the time..;)

An Ugly Woman is the name of this picture. A typical baroque esageration..

This is finally on the Piazza Quirinale.

Though Friday it was snowing in Rome for the first time since '85. People went crazy, grown-ups were children again for a day.. I think it really is a MUST to post few pictures of this once in a life-time event! Pictures are taken by my friend Saffir, sad i didn't have my camera with me..

This is me, caught in the first moment of happyness, wearing my dear classmate Tommy's jacket, ohhh it was so warm...;)

Stay Fabulous,
Merilin.