Shopping:There is nowhere like Paris when it comes to buying secondhand clothes, writes Catherine Cleary
THEY ARE the holy grail for charity shop devotees: the thrift shops on the streets nearest the wardrobes of the wealthiest women. These are the places where the well-dressed can offload last season's lightly-worn labels in order to clear space for this season's collection. You find them in New York streets. Even in Dublin they are dotted around affluent corners. Once, the Women's Aid shop in Ranelagh (now moved to Dundrum and Aungier Street) displayed a dozen pairs of ballet pumps, all styles and colours, all size four and almost all of them unworn. It was a vignette of booming Ireland: the day a woman with small feet decided that ballet pumps were over.
Where better to hunt for vintage chic than in the city where the sense of style seems an innate national characteristic? Spend five minutes on a Paris street these days and you notice two things. Parisians do not declare their status through the size of their engines. On a two-day visit, one lone SUV was spotted in the centre of the city. Smart cars and small cars are everywhere. And secondly, chic does not come just in the tanned, blonde and Botoxed variety. The most striking woman I saw had short silver hair and a billowing linen grey smock that ended at a gathered hem above her ankles.
Paris doesn't do charity shops, but there are places where the price of a chainstore dress can get you something a bit more special. The city has a network of dépôts-ventes, or resale shops which stock good secondhand clothes.
You cannot be too particular with the thrift shop gods. They will give you what they will give you. There are no rails stocked with multiple sizes and colours. And when you find it, hold on to it. Leave it on the rails to think about it and it will almost certainly be picked up by someone else as you dither.
The real bargain hunter can trek far and wide by metro to find these small shops, but head for the Saint-Germain-des-Prés area and there is much within walking or pedalling distance.
And this is where you can turn the whole experience into something unique. I called her Mabel. I found her on the street and now she was my piece of Paris, a way of making the magnificent city feel like home. She had a basket at the front, a bell, and a handsome coffee-coloured body. And for the grand sum of €7 we spent the day together, cycling past the Louvre, freewheeling effortlessly past foot-sore tourists.
The truth was, there were several Mabels. After a short pedal I would fasten her to a docking station. Someone else might come and take her while I had a coffee but there was always another one of Paris's Vélibs, or street bicycles, to hand. There are roughly 20,000 of these sturdy bikes available for hire on the streets. They have three gears and a pleasant old-fashioned high-nelly feel to them. A quick credit card deposit and they are yours for the pedalling.
My mission was a winter coat. My first destination was on the Rue de Bourbon le Château, for the Dépôt-Vente de Buci. It is in a lovely location full of galleries, small eclectic shops (there is one devoted just to olive oil in all its permutations) and cafes. In her window the owner displayed a Paul Smith silk dress in sea-green colours with a €300 price tag. Inside, there was much to spend time browsing over. A DKNY skirt was on sale for €100, and a table full of bric-à-brac included a manicure set in its own beautiful green leather case. There were shoes and bags and the atmosphere was friendly rather than frosty.
There was plenty to like but nothing suitable to buy here, so I continued on to the street that turned into a golden acre for what one friend calls those Vera Value moments. The Chercheminippes chain of five shops are all dotted along the Rue du Cherche-Midi. At number 111 is the womenswear shop with a mixture of chainstore and reasonable designer labels for sale. Inside was a busy throng of women and what seemed like half a dozen pince-nez-wearing shop assistants who would nod approvingly when you emerged from the changing room to consult the mirror.
A Paul and Joe shirt was €36. A French label wool grey suit with dress and matching short jacket was €45. It was a couple of sizes too large. A black coat which might have been The One disappeared from the rail before I had a chance to take a second look.
Across the road, another branch of the same shop that sells homewares had an eclectic mixture of items, from cotton nightdresses that felt like starched sheets, to armchairs and multicoloured glass tumblers. Farther down the street, the designer Chercheminippes had fewer and more expensive clothes. There were no killer coats. But at €105, a Diane Von Furstenberg charcoal wool wrap dress in my size was consolation enough.
A short stroll took me to the Fan Fan Dépôt-Vente on Rue Mayet, which had plenty of labels in the windows. If the designer handbag is your thing, there was a Chloe one for €650, alongside a pair of sky-blue Manolos for €90. Inside, a full-length black Lanvin frock coat looked promising. But it had a €400 price tag and looked like its former owner had extracted her money's worth before she dropped it off.
And finally, the Rolls-Royce of pre-loved garments comes in the shape of Didier Ludot. The king of French vintage, his two shops sit in the beautiful gardens of the Palais Royale. There is a shop where you can browse through Chanel suits, bags and shoes and then a second one to which you have to request admission. Inside are vintage dresses and coats to break hearts and bank balances. My coat sat there in the window. It was a simple black Chanel number with a simple price tag of €8,500. Someone with a better credit rating is probably wearing it now. But I pedal happily into the sunset. It is not always good to get what you wish for.
Dépôt-Vente de Buci, 6 Rue de Bourbon le Château;
Chercheminippes, 111 Rue du Cherche-Midi;
Fan Fan Dépôt-Vente, 4 Rue Mayet;
Didier Ludot, 20-24 Galerie de Montpensier, Jardin du Palais Royale