L'Eclaireur

L'Eclaireur review

Paris's fashion-savvy consumers have a few reliable staples up their designer sleeves for a day of perfect spending: the Carrousel du Louvre for future looks, Hôtel Costes for cocktails to soften the blow to the wallet, and, always top of the agenda for cutting-edge trends and unique finds, L'Eclaireur. This touchstone for fashionistas takes the form of five distinctive boutiques, and can make or break a designer merely by stocking his creations or relegating them to the sale rail. Although each store is different, all five are unified by their determination to sniff out new finds; L'Eclaireur (which means scout) certainly lives up to its name.

The women's collections are still handpicked by Martine Hadida, the other half of entrepreneur Armand. As the youngest in a Moroccan Jewish family of ten, Armand started out as a shop assistant, and went on to open the first L'Eclaireur boutique in the Galerie des Champs-Elysées arcade. Starting with Marithé and François Girbaud, the pair soon stocked the shop with Vivienne Westwood, John Galliano, Moschino and the Belgians, 'who no one wanted at the time'. Each season they went against the grain, daring to do long silhouettes in the face of cinched waists and shoulder pads.

Hadida's talent turned out to be as much for location scouting as for sourcing designer gear; in 1990 he bought 3 rue des Rosiers, which has since become one of Paris's most sought-after fashion streets. It was a precursor to today's concept stores, displaying clothes alongside Dyson's revolutionary vacuum cleaners, Alain Ducasse's stove, and designs by Philippe Starck and Jean Nouvel. The store is now devoted to womenswear, with menswear nearby at rue Malher (no.12, 4th, 01.44.54.22.11). It was also here that the couple's partnership with Barnaba Fornasetti, son of the Surrealist Piero, began. Their newest boutique, on rue Boissy-d'Anglas (no.8), which leans more towards couture, fulfils a dream to create a Fornasetti-themed restaurant (01.53.43.09.99), which includes a corner decorated with his erotic drawings.

If you go to just one L'Eclaireur, make it the rue Hérold boutique (no.10), where ringing the doorbell is the open sesame to a hidden cave of treasures. Head along the dark corridor lined with casts of Roman statues, then enter the main chamber for the personal shopping treatment from the energetic Nathalie. Among the clothes - with cutting-edge creations by Gustav Olins, Under Cover and Carol Christian Poell - are housed a bizarre selection of curios, the likes of which an 18th-century explorer might have brought back from his travels: an enormous globe, stuffed exotic birds, antique mirrors, and hunting decoys that look like Picasso sculptures. Another room is devoted to furniture. You'll find Winnie Lui's chandeliers, hung with doll's houses and beads, next to a life-size giraffe's head sticking out of the wall, and Piet Hein Eek's huge tables and standard lamps, made from reclaimed wood and metal, the result of a long-running collaboration.

Hadida's claim that he wants to 'share, not to sell' may be pushing it, but a visit to rue Hérold remains an experience more akin to visiting a secret museum than the mere acquisition of fancy frocks.