Paris Retro Flap Pouch – Au Petit Versailles du Marais

Sometimes, a storefront is all it takes.

A colour, a few painted letters, a glass door, two characters from another era — and suddenly the pavement becomes much more interesting.

Au Petit Versailles du Marais certainly lives up to its name. Its orange façade and decorative painted panels have something wonderfully theatrical about them. It is exactly the kind of place that makes me reach for my camera.

But a bakery is not meant to be admired only from the pavement.

So lift the flap.

Inside, the scenery changes: rows of baguettes, golden loaves and colourful pastries. The façade becomes the entrance to a small photographic story. First outside, then inside. Paris from the street, then Paris from the delicious side.

A pouch waiting to be filled

Its 19.5 × 19.5 cm square format can hold all sorts of small essentials: make-up, cables and chargers, earphones, pencils, a notebook, papers or travel accessories.

It does not dictate what should go inside. That is precisely what I like about it.

One pouch for cables, another for pencils, perhaps another for those mysterious objects we keep “just in case” although nobody quite remembers what they do.

Photography turned into an everyday object

I photograph Paris while walking, with a particular fondness for its shops, signs and storefronts. These places tell the story of the city differently from its famous monuments. They speak of daily life, habits and people, of what was there yesterday and may be different tomorrow.

Here, photography leaves the wall and slips into your bag.

The original Maron Bouillie photographs are printed on recycled polyester fabric. The pouch is made in France in small batches.

A little Versailles to carry around. Considerably easier than taking the big one.