Have you ever been to a Paris sale? It’s like nothing I’ve ever known before.

First thing. The sales in France are regulated. They are allowed to be on for 6 weeks, from the end of June till the beginning of August. The dates were published just last week for each departement. Being in the sale period, the stores are allowed to open on Sundays which is an exception as normally all stores are closed on Sundays. The rule I like best is that only articles that have been previously sold can be included in the sale, so there’s none of that getting in special crappy stock for sales, this is the real deal. Last week you could have paid €1300 for that funky little Chanel singlet, but if you had waited till June 28th, 8am you would have picked it up for a mere €650! The rule I like least is that no matter if the store has 5000 of those singlets left in orange, the lowest price they can sell it for is the cost price. They cannot lose money on the article and recoup from something else, all sale prices must be equal to or above the cost price. So much for free enterprise.

Yesterday I went along to Galleries Lafayette and Printemps and I just couldn’t believe all the people! It looked like everyone took a journee RTT and hit the shops. It was unbelievable, normally reserved French women, fighting over designer labels reduced by 50%. I was carried along by the crowd most of the day – and by the time I found a moment of breathing space I noticed it was 5pm, and I’d just spent €600 over 8 hours on all absolutely, positively, almost boringly necessary stuff for the apartment.

Of course.

(I returned this morning to look at the clothes, and shoes, and bags…. I’m only human!)