Paris in Store - Valérie Weill, Philippe Chancel

This is a picture of Paris as the city is today – but it is also a record of a disappearing world that is fast being replaced by the uniformity of the high street and the ubiquity of the chainstore. This lovely book presents a unique collection of 100 wonderfully evocative photographs of Paris shops and shop windows accompanied by their own individual business cards. From the bizarre to the banal, each has a story to tell – the bookshop L’Introuvable specializes in crime and tries to recreate the atmosphere of a detective novel; the boutique Repetto captures childhood dreams of ballet; a shoe repairer displays rubber boots along its shelves; the shoe shop with the kitsch fake forest in the background almost invites you to go for a walk.