design

couver un astre

A large helium balloon floats up into the sky in Paris during the Olympic Games

Recently I wrote about Sophie Fontanel’s Couver un Astre (reviewed here), a poignant reflection on the large balloon that was installed in Le Jardin des Tuileries during the Paris Olympics and Para-Olympics of summer 2024.

Her book describes the effect this installation on herself and the community around her, how its ascent sixty metres into the sky each evening, did something to uplift those who witnessed it, every night.

Back in September 2024, the idea was floated that the city of Paris wished that the installation could be kept in the public gardens after the Olympic Games, an idea that posed a series of technical, financial and heritage problems.

Everybody loves a balloon

The enthusiasm and wonder the balloon generated was quite unexpected by the city and the designer. Very few tickets were available to approach the balloon up close, something Sophie Fontanel ponders in her book.

Yesterday it was announced that this magnificent design by Mathieu Lehanneur will be reinstalled in the Tuileries Gardens, the public space that separates the pyramid of the Louvre, the place de la Concorde and the Champs-Élysées, for the next three summers until 2028.

So if you didn’t get to see this wonder last summer, from afar or up close, there will be another three summers of opportunity to witness something of what Sophie Fontanel writes about.

An executive order of a different kind

After a joint announcement was made by the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo and the President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, he posted this message on social media.

“Elle reviendra chaque étè. De la Fête de la musique [21 juin] à la Fête du sport, jusqu’aux Jeux de Los Angeles”

“It will return each summer. From the Music festival to the Sport festival, until the Los Angeles Games.”

In a similar spirit to the Fête de la musique, after the games of 2024, the annual Fête du sport was created. Every year on September 14, sport demonstrations and competitions are held to increase awareness and improve participation in different sports.

Relive the Magic

la vasque olympique — Photo by Mathias Reding on Pexels.com

It is good to know that those difficulties were somehow overcome, and in a relatively short period of time, in order for the balloon to be ready for the summer of 2025.

The balloon will be accessible to the public from 10am until 7pm every day, and will again rise with the sunset into the Paris sky in the evenings.

Maybe now someone might translate this gem of a book into English, since the wonder of this uplifting balloon is going to be around for a few more summers.

Anyone planning to visit Paris in the next three years?

I mentioned in my recent review of Deborah Batterman’s Shoes Hair Nails that it had reminded me of a book lurking on my daughter’s shelf, a gift from a family member who is a designer.

The book is manolo blahník’s drawings, a small pocket-book of 120 original sketches and quotes that create a visual history of the talent of one of Spain’s most creative and alluring shoe designers. Being a book full of hand drawn images, there isn’t much to say about the content, because it just must be seen and appreciated.

Manolo Blahník

Born in the Canary Islands, he has been sketching shoes since the age of seven and had hopes of becoming a set designer, before fashion editor Diana Vreeland suggested he concentrate on shoes. No surprise that there is a theatricality to his designs and a sense of the artist at work.

One of the best quotes, this definition of Manolo Blahník, expressed by Franca Sozzani, Editor-in-Chief of Vogue Italia:

Manolo Blahník

While I am not a great fan of shopping for and trying on shoes, I do love looking at and admiring them and these designs are pure inspiration, going beyond any practical requirement and into the realm of art which is more likely the reason I was so keen to visit the Shoe Gallery when it opened in London a couple of years ago.

These are some of my favourite images from the book.

Manolo speaks through his shoes. For him, the foot, the shoe, implies the whole nature of a person, and expresses a story. ANNA PIAGGI

The day we bought the book (from Liberty’s in London) was also the day of the opening of the Shoe Gallery in Selfridges in London. A gallery of shoes and in 2010, while the middle class were keeping a low profile in the gardened suburbs due to the recession, it seems the creative younger generation of London were being inspired to flaunt shoe art!

Selfridges Shoe Gallery

Designed by the architect Jamie Fobert and the largest shoe department in the world, it contains 6 salons, 11 brand boutiques and more than 4,000 pairs of shoes. And what an outrageously joyous wander around that was, a gallery with none of the pressure of a shoe shop, one is free to wander around and admire the masterpieces of the many diva’s of shoe design. There was even a Shoe Booth, where you could have a photo taken with your favourite pair, how generous is that!

Instead of one large department, you enter six different zones, each space a character in itself. The line of Spanish alabaster plinths modelling their shoes in regal splendour, give it a real feeling of a gallery, the shoe taking pride of place and unlike in a gallery or museum, all available to buy. The architects only managed to convince Selfridges to go with concept of plinths, having proven that sales of shoes displayed on them, far outstripped sales all other pairs. It seems we all aspire to the pedestal, no matter who or what sits on top of it!