The sense of smell can stir-up potent memories. Certain aromas allow to relive an infinite array of events, as they transport us to different places and times where memories interact with imagination and fantasy.

Paris, apart from being an elegant city par excellence, is the capital of perfume. While there are thousands of ways to experience this unique place which combines flavors and fragances, it’s the city of Grasse where the finest aromas can be found.

But at Rue Scribe, near the Garnier Opéra House, in an old theater, a museum/boutique reveals infinite secrets and curiosities about the manufactering of fragances. Upon crossing through the doorway, one can admire all the distillation stages involved in the elaboration of the different aromas until discovering the marvelous collection of objects linked with perfume making.  Perfume as it’s known today became a liquid in the late XIV century after having originally been a solid.

With a familiar spirit and the hand crafted values that it represents, Fragonard has succeeded in crossing borders to make the sense of smell a uniquely pleasant experience. There are also free guided tours.

Fragonard, 9, Rue Scribe, 75009 Paris, M° Opéra

Musée du Luxembourg will also be renovating from Jan 2010 until 2011.

Although its location inside Forum des Halles is not the most desirable, Forum des Images is the gem of this underground maze. Nowhere else will you find such an enormously varied film agenda including 1920s silent film, contemporary art house cinema and everything in between. There is a strong emphasis on the French cinema tradition with regular screenings of films by the French masters of cinema such as Marcel Carné, Louis Malle, Jean Luc Godard and Jean Renoir.  They even offer the delightful ‘Menu Court’ – showings of short films at 1.15pm every day for €1 designed to fit into your lunch break.

However, Forum des Images is not just a great cinema. The frequency of master classes, cinema lessons and debates are what make it so unique to Paris. The master classes are open to anyone with a ticket and have included highly influential members of the film community such as Claude Chabrol and Gérard Depardieu. Forum’s biggest coup to date is the master class by Francis Ford Coppola. Fear not that tickets for this event were sold out in a few hours. Isabelle Hupert, star of some of the most astonishing French films of the last decade such as La Pianiste and Ma Mère, will also be taking a master class .

If you’re feeling especially invigorated by this grand array of cinematic education then you can even hop next door to the Bibliotèque de Cinéma François Truffaut and have a look at some of the 17,000 books about film.

Forum des Images , 101 Porte Berger, 75001 Paris, M° Les Halles – Châtelet

Perched on Quai D’Austerlitz on the old industrial banks of the Seine is a 21st century Emerald City. The Cité de la Mode et du Design is a converted storehouse wrapped in a vibrant green, wavy skin that was designed to echo the murky Seine running beside it.

Cité de la Mode is due to open in early 2010 and the public should soon be able to visit the complex of boutiques, restaurants and exhibition spaces all pertaining to the theme of fashion and design.  The building already plays host to the post-graduate fashion design and management school l’Institut de la Mode. However, it is the Cité’s adventurous architecture which is the greatest testament to its proposed use.

Twenty years ago this part of town was a run down industrial zone. Stretching from Gare d’Austerlitz to Boulevard Général Jean-Simon, a visit to this corner of the 13th arrondissement was easily bypassed. Since 1991 the area has been subject to a massive urban redevelopment plan, which has seen the district renamed to ‘Paris Rive Gauche’.  Although the district centralizes the 24 storey Bibliothéque Nationale de France, it appears that architecturally speaking, the jewel in the crown may in fact be the Cité de la Mode et du Design.

Franco-Kiwi duo Dominique Jakob et Brendan MacFarlane, who won the contract in an open competition, took the existing 1907 warehouse structure and overlaid a web-like network of green-painted steel, screen-printed glass and wooden decking which form walkways along the river and lead to a grassy landscaped rooftop.
The architects have nicknamed this concept the ‘Plug-in’: plugging a new structure and concept into the old, thereby manipulating its form and use. The decision to retain the original building, which was not an obligation, has given a contemporary project a sense of history in the midst of recent development, which has changed the landscape dramatically.

In the 30’s, Madeleine Vionnet was one of the greatest fashiondesigner of Paris. Unfortenately she is not wel known. The musée brings a homage to her by exposing 130 models and textile.

Musée des Arts Décoratifs, 70, Rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris, M° Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre

The Japanese Uniqlo, a mix of “unique” and “clothing” is specialised in leasure clothing or casual wear with a lot  basics, cachemires in all kind of colors.

This fall they have a collection Uniqlo+J designed by fashiondesigner Jil Sander.

Uniqlo, 17 rue Scribe , 75009 Paris, M° Opéra

Les Enfants Perdus is located just north of the canal on Rue de Récollets. It has three stylistically different areas – the bar/cafe, the restaurant and the conservatory – which provide a nice atmosphere that welcomes all, from students to professionals. With their lunchtime formule (15 euros) and plats (between 14-19 Euros), they are in competition with many of Paris’s mid-range brasseries, though in reality they are a fairly upmarket bistro/restaurant.

Les Enfants Perdus, 9 rue des Récollets, 75010 Paris, Tel. 01 81 29 48 26, M° Gare de l’Est

Its proposes a reflexion on the works of Matisse, the big master of Fauvism. Almost  his sculpture and some drawings will be confronted with works of Rodin.

The Musée Rodin is one of my favourites, specially the garden makes is very attractive.

Musée Rodin, 77 Rue de Varenne,75007 Paris,  tel 01 44 18 61 10, M° Varenne

In an intimate art gallery Au Bonheur du Jour, directly opposite the site of mythic brothel Le Chabanais presents in explicit detail the history of maisons closes in Paris from 1860 to 1946.

The display of carefully chosen vintage photographs, drawings, documents, paintings and objects of desire is divided into seventeen sections: Places, Women, Scenes with women, Spanking and flagellation, Libertine lingerie , Brothels for men, Guides and adverts, Tokens, Props, Painters and illustrators, Postcards, Songs, Illustrated magazines, Literature, Movies, the Saint-Lazare jail and finally the Closing of brothels.

Although brothels existed unofficially in Paris since the 13th century, it was only when Napoleon ordered their registration and a bi-weekly health inspection of all prostitutes that they started to be legally designated as the maisons closes. Among the most exquisite brothels, which flourished throughout the 19th century, were Le Chabanais, Le One Two Two, Le Sphinx, la Fleur Blanche, L’Etoile de Kléber . Each one of them had a clientele with specific erotic demand, from flagellation to libertine lingerie. When in 1946 when Marthe Richard, a town councilor and a former street prostitute, outlawed the maisons closes, approximately 1400 registered brothels were closed.

To get a glimpse of this sensual universe visit the gallery Au Bonheur du Jour until January 31, 2010.

Au Bonheur du Jour,11 rue Chabanais – 75002 Paris, M° Quatre-Septembre
Tuesday to Saturday, – 2.30pm – 7.30pm

Sunset-Sunside, 60, Rue des Lombards, 75001  Paris, tel. 01 40 26 46 60 , M° Châtelet