La Vie Creative

Send us Fan Mail Erin Colston is a Texan who followed her dreams to New York to attend American Musical and Dramatic Academy and pursue a career in theater and singing at the young age of 18.  After 9 years in the Big Apple and some small successes, she then followed a second dream to Paris. There, she started a musical theater class with 9 students in her first small day camp and it has grown to...

Send us Fan Mail Marie Antoinette is known for her style, love of fashion and jewelry and in the end what led to her demise. One woman is behind her look more than anyone else including those amazing hair styles. Rose Bertin had a knack for style that drew the attention of a very devoted following that went back to her early days.  Born July 2, 1747 in Abbeville, she moved to Paris and started wor...

Send us Fan Mail Sunny Buick was born in British Columbia, Canada, and grew up all over Northern California, finally ending up in the Bay Area in her teenage years. In 1986 while attending a high school especially for artists, she started to hang out in the milieu of San Francisco tattooing; and began to tattoo professionally in 1992. She served a formal apprenticeship with Henry Goldfield for 6 y...

Send us Fan Mail One of the newest sensations in Paris this summer has been the very long awaited reopening of Samaritaine. It started as a tiny store on the corner of Rue du Pont Neuf by a couple that spent their entire life in retail.  Marie Louise Ja Ja, born on July 1, 1838 came from a large family and was forced to start working at a very early age to help support the family. In 1853 she move...

Send us Fan Mail Flytographer connects travelers with local photographers in over 350 cities around the globe for fun, hassle-free photo shoots. Inspired by a 2011 trip to Paris, from the desire to capture vacation memories that weren’t awkward selfies or blurry photos from strangers, Nicole Smith set out to solve the gap in the market for vacation photography. Two years later, Flytographer was bo...

Send us Fan Mail Manet, like most painters, had many models they worked with. Manet found women that not only sat for him but also inspired him. Berthe Morisot was a young art student that had the looks of the dark haired Spanish beauties he was obsessed with. Morisot became an accomplished artist herself and married Manet’s brother, creating a devoted family of artists.  Victorine Meuret sat for...

Send us Fan Mail When I first set foot in Paris as a teenager, les pyramides in front of the Louvre didn’t exist, the Musée d’Orsay was a defunct train station with broken windows, and the cathedral of Notre Dame would continue to display a sooty black façade for another twenty plus years. Still, Paris had that certain je ne sais quoi. And, like so many before me, I was hooked…well, nearly. In ear...

Send us Fan Mail Dora Maar from the end of her life until today is widely labeled the “Muse of Picasso”. As with most women in history they are relegated to being a postscript in a man's story, Dora was much more than that.  Born on November 22, 1907 Henriette Markovitch in Paris at the Tarnier Maternity Clinic at 89 Rue d’Assas. Her father Joseph was a Croatian architect and her mother Louis...

Send us Fan Mail Born and raised in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Karen grew up with the aspiration to be a comedian, a musician, or both… She groomed these crafts from a young age by making everyone around her laugh and beginning a lifetime romance with the flute at the age of 9. She went on to study drama at Temple University in Philadelphia and played in a series of bands. From the age of 30 until s...

Send us Fan Mail Louise Joesphine Weber is remembered more for her adoptive name La Goulue and how she got the name. Born on June 12, 1866, in Clichy the love of dancing was instilled in her at a very early age by her mother. By 1882 she had moved to Montreuil and started dancing at the Moulin de la Galette in Montmartre.  Customer and journalist Charles Desteque noticed her and introduced her to...

Send us Fan Mail Rebecca Devaney is a textile artist, researcher, and facilitator. She has recently established Textile Tours of Paris . Rebecca Devaney first landed in Paris in 2017 to follow her dreams and study haute couture embroidery at the prestigious École Lesage. With a BA in Art and Design Education and an MFA in Textile Art and Artefact from the National College of Art and Design in Irel...

Send us Fan Mail Liane de Pougy at the end of her life was labeled “from whore to nun” but I am getting ahead of myself.   Anne Marie Chassaigne was born June 2, 1869 in La Flèche in the Loire and raised in Brittany. On July 15, 1886, at 17 she married Joseph Armand Henri Pourpee who was a naval officer living in Marseille. Joseph would be gone a lot and Anne Marie filled her time with another man...

Send us Fan Mail Melissa grew up between Australia and the Philippines, singing in choirs and writing her own songs from a young age. She studied Musicology at the Conservatorium of Sydney and went on to work as an opera critic and co-editor of the classical music magazine Limelight . In 2013, she moved to Paris and freelanced as a travel and music journalist, while working at the Marché aux Puces...

Send us Fan Mail Madame de Sévigné, one of the greatest authors of the 17th century, never wrote a single book. Instead, she is known to us today as a “lady of letters”.  Marie de Rabutin Chantal was born February 5, 1626, in the Palais Royal home of her grandparents. By the time she turned seven both of her parents had died and were being raised by her grandparents and uncle Christopher. He would...

Send us Fan Mail Mrids is a former film/TV producer who left the BBC, Hollywood, her jeans - sneakers outfit, to buy a sharp striped suit for a Masters at Columbia University in New York diving into business strategy.    An ambitious entrepreneur with a first profitable business at age 9, she truly loves solving problems and brainstorming solutions.  In her corporate role in NYC as Growth Strategi...

Send us Fan Mail Jeanne DuVal was the beautiful muse of Charles Baudelaire and would inspire his glowing devotion. The Black Venus and Mistress of Mistresses as he called her is mostly unknown still to this day.  Much of the details of her life are murky due to a fire that would destroy her vital documents.  Jeanne was tall and beautiful and her striking looks got her a role on the stage. Performi...

Send us Fan Mail Hello. I’m French and American, born in the mid-seventies, in April . I was raised in the forest , and spent my childhood either running wild in the woods of Picardie or taking planes to JFK to visit my grandmother. I also played a lot of piano . At that time, I  wanted to be in a musical , but instead I studied political science at Sciences-Po and business at HEC , in Paris. And...

Send us Fan Mail Nélie Jacquemart was an artist and art collector whose love of art remains today and shared with everyone that visits the museums t As a child, her family worked and lived with the wealthy Alphée & Rose de Vatry. Rose formed a special relationship with the young Nélie who had a talent for drawing. Armed with art supplies she started to draw, encouraged by Rose who was also abl...

Send us Fan Mail Tanisha Townsend has cultivated a community of wine enthusiasts through an unyielding passion for Oenology. As Chief Wine Officer of lifestyle agency Girl Meets Glass, Tanisha leads wine classes and tours in Paris (and virtually). Her goal is to empower individuals with advanced knowledge of wine & spirits in order to build confidence in their tastes and make choices as a bett...

Send us Fan Mail The Musée du Louvre and it’s list of amazing art is endless and hard to know where to even start. We will help share a few pieces that you don’t want to miss on your next trip to Paris.  In 1848 Louis Philippe commissioned 20 statues for the Jardin du Luxembourg. He picked each one that went from Queen Berthe to Anne d’Autriche and included Jeanne d’Arc. The Maid of Orleans was sc...

Send us Fan Mail Anna Kloots is a Paris-based American writer and storyteller. But also a photographer, and there is a story behind every shot she takes. She is a true nomad, in the last twelve years she has gone through two passports; living and traveling in over 83 countries across 6 continents. She takes followers inside her life in Paris on her popular Instagram page. https://annakloots.com/ S...

Send us Fan Mail Gabrielle d’Estrées, a woman known more for her risque painting than of her life itself. Gabrielle was born around 1573, and daughter of Antoine d’Estrées, Baron de Boulonnois and Françoise de la Bourdaisieres. She was one of eleven children, seven of which were girls and gave them the moniker “seven deadly sins” by the Marquis de Sevigné. Gabrielle mingled in the court of Henri I...

Send us Fan Mail Yanique Francis is a Paris-based businesswoman. An expert event planner, travel writer, and industry consultant. Francis was born in Jamaica and lived in the USA. She earned her Master's Degree in International Communications and Marketing at Emerson College. Francis founded MyParisianLife, a French Food and lifestyle blog in 2008, which went on to be named one of "best...

Send us Fan Mail The life of Juliette Drouet is closely tied to Victor Hugo, but she wasn’t always his mistress.  Juliette’s beautiful head turning looks was garnering the attention of Paris, especially the men. In a way to help fund her shopping sprees, a life as a courtesan and on the stage fit the bill. Not exactly a natural actor, but her looks got the attention of the producers and audience a...

Send us Fan Mail Heather Stimmler is an American-born journalist and author living in France since 1995. She started the Secrets of Paris newsletter in 1999 as a hobby while working as an editor at ELLE.com in Paris. Over the next 20 years, Secrets of Paris grew into a private tour company and a guidebook publisher. In 2016 Heather became the Global Media Director for the international marine cons...