Field Notes from Paris
2025-10-20
I keep a small notebook when I travel. Not for journaling — more like an evidence log. Things I notice, things that feel wrong, things that feel right in a way I can't immediately explain.
Paris in October. These are some notes.
On windows. Every apartment window I passed had a different relationship to the street. Some fully open, some shuttered, some with plants staged so deliberately they had to be intentional. I kept thinking about how little we consider the exterior of our private spaces in New York — how the facade is not your problem, belongs to the building, is not a form of communication.
In Paris the window is a statement. You are presenting yourself to the street.
On pace. Everyone here eats slowly. Not performatively slowly — there is no Instagram moment being constructed — but actually, genuinely in no hurry. I watched a table of four women spend three hours over lunch. No one looked at a phone. The carafe of water was refilled four times.
I find this almost unbearable to be around, which tells me something about my own nervous system I should probably address.
On display. The windows of the concept stores here are insane. Not in a maximalist way — in a committed way. Someone made a decision and followed it all the way. There is no hedging, no trying to appeal to multiple sensibilities at once. This is what this is. Take it or leave it.
That confidence is what I keep reaching for in the studio and not quite finding.