Monocle Weekend
Edition: Saturday

We had a party in Paris on Wednesday (indeed, there’s a separate party-people report in this very outing of The Monocle Weekend Edition). And it was fun.

When I took the Eurostar to Paris on Tuesday, it was winter coat-and-scarf weather but by the time I returned on Thursday it was T-shirt-tastic on the mercury front. Spring had busted out in a big way. This meant that the 200 people who came to see our new shop and café on Rue Bachaumont could spill onto the street to smoke and drink their champagne. Unlike in many cities these days, there were no visits from grumpy neighbours shocked that people were talking on the street and no officials prodding you to stand behind some made-up line – just happy people being all that you want Parisians to be. Ah, Paris.

Monocle’s new retail shop, café and radio studio (plus a separate bureau, just a few metres away) are in the Montorgueil neighbourhood of the 2nd arrondissement. From here, you can walk in minutes to Les Halles, the Pompidou Centre or the Pinault Collection at the Bourse de Commerce. So it’s central but it’s not an area that I knew before we took the space.

I snuck off for an hour just before the party to walk the neighbourhood’s streets and, really, it’s an urban miracle. It’s not plagued by empty shops but rather hosts a line-up of outlets that you might add to a drawing of the perfect neighbourhood: fish counters, butchers, shoe-repair shops, old-fashioned chocolateries and modern artisanal bakers. In between there are dry cleaners, key cutters, street-level ateliers and so many thriving bars and cafés. Life tumbled out onto the city’s pavements. I looked with a modicum of envy at the couples young and ancient, and the little dogs sitting in the sun. It’s a well-cast neighbourhood.

Arriving in a place such as this comes with some responsibilities; you need to play your part. Thankfully, Loriane in the café and Irma in our shop seem to have this well covered. Indeed, it turns out that we have already become part of several locals’ schedules, with regulars heading to the café every morning to read their paper and have their morning jolt of caffeine.

On Thursday, with the sun bright and the birds chirping their lusty spring chorus, I walked for half an hour to Le Marais to visit two people that I had met at our party. Patrick Scherzer and Sissi Pohle live in southern Germany, from where they run a business called Out of Use Berlin (they used to reside in the capital). In those Berlin days they started buying and selling vintage clothing but after the shift to a rural life they added silverware, old patterned crockery and cutlery to their hauls. They also started an Instagram account and found a following. Now they rent their stock for events (they just worked for Netflix) and run occasional pop-ups. They have one in Paris, where I tracked them down this week. They’re great, young and funny, with a unique sense of dress – raffish 19th-century aristocrat meets farmer – and they have found a market that nobody knew existed. A connection made while standing on Rue Bachaumont.

I walked back to base with a spring in my step, imagining myself inserted into every lovely vignette that I observed. Luckily, I am back next week for our Patrons dinner, so I can do some of this for real.

The Monocle Café & Shop, 16 Rue Bachaumont

Out of Use Berlin, 55 Boulevard Beaumarchais, is on until tomorrow (Sunday is the best day to visit as there is a large street demonstration on today).

Luxury industry leaders, ambassadors, novelists, film producers and architects all came to Monocle’s new shop, café and radio-studio operation on Wednesday on Paris’s Rue Bachaumont for one very fun party (the large supply of Ruinart helped). Our new outpost in the French capital has been designed by Kann Design – founders Houssam Kanaan and Meghedi Simonian were on the guest list, of course – and there were lots of admiring comments about their work.

This being Paris, there were numerous effortless good looks on display and a few fashion-forward wardrobes too. But it was also a night of good conversations about everything from cinema and egg sandos to French diplomacy and the art market. It was the perfect celebration of our arrival in the 2nd arrondissement.

Rossignol’s high-performance apparel is synonymous with navigating Europe’s snowy peaks (writes Claudia Jacob). But after a spate of mild winters and unreliable snowfall, the Isère-based brand, which was founded in 1907 in the French Alps, has changed tack, or rather, track. Instead of focusing on fresh designs for the winter season, Rossignol has been flogging old stock and investing the profits in a new revenue stream. Cue the Vezor, a lightweight, chunky soled trail-running shoe that allows wearers to deftly navigate rugged hiking tracks on summer Alpine escapades.

It’s the first step in Rossignol’s diversification strategy, which will complement its increasingly multi-seasonal offering without compromising on its hallmark commitment to technicality. The homegrown brand, which has kitted out elite racing teams and Olympic champions, estimates that hiking-and-running apparel will make up 15 per cent of its turnover by 2028. It’s a crowded market: other French equipment brands, including Hoka and Salomon, are leading the pack. But with more than a century of scientific innovation in sports to call upon, the Alpine manufacturer is hoping to weather this uphill battle with grace.
rossignol.com

Sauna fashion leaves little to the imagination (writes Gregory Scruggs). Unless beads of sweat count as accessories, the only fashion article that you might encounter in the 80C heat is, oddly enough, a felt-wool hat. The physiology behind this singular sauna accoutrement – besides an artfully placed towel, of course – is that the head heats up before the body. The hat’s insulating properties delay overheating so that you can prolong your sauna session. The hats also help to protect hair from heat-induced damage and some people even soak their hats in water first as a preemptive cooling measure.

A sauna-heavy winter sent me searching for my own specialised headwear. The number of options are as dizzying as the feeling from spending too long on the top bench. Should I go with the obvious and buy a Finnish brand, such as heritage woolmakers Lahtiset, or give a few euros to the equally sauna-mad Estonians who just haven’t marketed their national obsession as intensely as their cross-Baltic neighbour? A Russian-made banya hat would violate sanctions but what about a charming two-tone Ukrainian option with blue-and-yellow needlework? Or should I eschew the traditional loose-fitting bell shape entirely and opt for something contemporary, such as Welsh brand Heartwood Sauna’s handmade knit caps? One trend I won’t be partaking in, however, is the peaked sauna hat. Perhaps a function of too much Nordic folkloric whimsy, there’s a distressing array of choices that conjure up the garden gnome, a look that would send me plunging into the nearest cold lake in embarrassment.

Over the past year, Inditex-owned Zara has unveiled an evolving collaboration series with the likes of former Saint Laurent creative director Stefano Pilati, musician Charlotte Gainsbourg and Budapest-based label Nanushka. The A Coruña business is now aiming even higher by launching a new label with Samuel Ross, the fashion designer known for streetwear label A-Cold-Wall and partnerships with watchmaker Hublot.

Named SR_A Engineered, this joint venture is a multidisciplinary studio rather than a traditional fashion label, spanning clothing as well as furniture, art and industrial design. Ross’s first project of four, a menswear capsule focused on performance wear, made its debut during Paris Fashion Week this January and included voluminous parkas, kimono-inspired coats and slides featuring Japanese shiso stitching. “These are clothes for navigating cultural spaces and spaces of work and play,” says Ross.
sr-a.com

Like most car manufacturers, Volkswagen has fitted its latest models with digital displays to create computerised cockpits that would have boggled the imagination of Buck Rogers (writes Andrew Mueller). It turns out, however, that many actual motorists would rather just push a damn button (a 2024 survey by What Car? put this cohort at 89 per cent).

After heeding feedback from befuddled customers, some possibly calling from the ponds into which they had driven while trying to switch on the air conditioning, future Volkswagens will therefore revert to physical controls for basic functions. Design chief Andreas Mindt conceded that “It’s not a phone, it’s a car,” which seems like something he should have noticed before now.

It has to be hoped that a backlash has begun – hearteningly, Hyundai and MG have made similar decisions – and not just in the world of vehicles. Readers will have their own bugbears of this type: the digital phone keyboards that are slower and less intuitive than the physical equivalents of bygone Blackberrys and Palm Treos; the various inferior successors to the satisfyingly tactile iPod; the self-checkouts that are somehow more annoying and time-consuming than the most indolent and/or garrulous human-checkout operative.

Technology is – to be clear – marvellous. You are likely reading this on a device that instantly, and at little expense, offers you access to pretty much the sum total of human learning. But not every advance is necessarily an improvement. Knowing when to stop is an undervalued skill, as drivers in ponds will wearily confirm.

London’s longest-running art fair, the London Original Print Fair, takes place this weekend as galleries from around the world descend on Somerset House (writes Sophie Monaghan-Coombs). Here, director Helen Rosslyn recommends three institutions present at this year’s edition from countries with rich histories of printmaking.

Hanga Ten
Japan has a strong tradition of printmaking, including methods such as woodblock, mezzotint (a monochrome printmaking technique), silkscreen and kappazuri (Japanese stencil printing). Gallery Hanga Ten has been exhibiting at the London Original Print Fair for years and will now showcase the latest woodblock works of Ray Morimura and Kazuyuki Ohtsu, as well as mezzotints and lithographs.

India Printmaker House
New to the fair this year is collective India Printmaker House, a collaboration between artists using traditional techniques in India and the UK. Expect delicate works by artists Shivangi Ladha and Mahima Kapoor that play on light and shadow, and explore the theme of ephemerality.

The Muban Educational Trust
This small London-based charity is dedicated to the promotion and preservation of Chinese woodblock printmaking. Its mission is to encourage young Chinese artists and provide an international platform to showcase their work. In particular, pieces by Fu Xinghan and Chao Mei are worth a look.

Radio service Voice of America (VOA) was set up during the Second World War as a way for the US to counter propaganda abroad and project its worldview globally. Last week its airwaves fell silent following an executive order from Donald Trump. Despite the president typically enjoying every possible way to spread his voice around the world, the service has been gagged and accused of disseminating “radical propaganda”. We sat down with VOA’s chief national correspondent, Steve Herman, to discuss.

Might there still be a case for VOA to defend itself, even if that ends up in court?
There have been no court filings as yet but we need to act quickly. If Voice of America is not dead today, it’s definitely in a very deep coma. It’s a broadcasting operation and it’s silent. The audience is not going to be patient for very long and the vacuum will be filled by voices from Beijing to Moscow.

This service was set up in the 1940s to counter propaganda in authoritarian countries. Has VOA done enough to convince US taxpayers of its continued value?
I’m a journalist and correspondent but for many years I have spoken publicly about VOA to a domestic audience. The American people are our stakeholders but they’re not our target audience. And frankly, most people don’t know what VOA is today. We feel that it is so important to tell people, not only around the world but also in the US, what’s going on because these broadcasts have ceased without explanation. If you’re well-travelled, you might understand the feeling when you happen to be tuning in to a broadcaster and all of a sudden the programming stops and it goes silent. What’s your first thought? “Oh, my God. There’s been a coup. The government has collapsed.” There’s some sort of instability. That’s Voice of America in recent days.

How did you respond to White House criticism stating that VOA was promoting ‘radical propaganda’?
It’s not the first time that I’ve heard things like that. We’ve heard that for many years from some of the nation’s most hostile enemies. So yes, it’s a bit ironic and disconcerting to hear that coming from inside the house, so to speak. But it is not for me to convince you or anybody else about what VOA is or is not. I came from the Associated Press before and I have stayed here for 20 years. If there was any sort of radical left, right, up or down propaganda going on, I would not be working at VOA.

For more interviews with leading figures and industry insiders, pick up a copy of Monocle’sMarch issue. Or, better yet,subscribeso that you never miss a beat. Have a super Saturday.