Colette
Worked here · 1932–1933
Colette opened her beauty shop at 6 rue de Miromesnil on 1 June 1932, selling cosmetics she made herself and making up clients in person. The short-lived venture closed after little more than a year.
6 rue de Miromesnil
Still standing
Outside only
Another shop
The beauty shop Colette opened in 1932, selling cosmetics she made herself — her attempt to turn her fame into a business.
- 6 rue de Miromesnil, 75008 Paris
- 1932–c. 1933
Artistic reconstruction
The place, briefly
On 1 June 1932 Colette opened a shop at 6 rue de Miromesnil — an institut de beauté selling cosmetics and perfumes she developed herself, where she also made up clients in person. The inauguration drew a theatrical crowd: the actresses Cécile Sorel, Marguerite Moreno and Charlotte Lysès, and the former courtesan Liane de Pougy. That November she demonstrated and sold her products at the Printemps department store.
It was an attempt to turn her celebrity into a business, and it was short-lived; the venture closed after little more than a year. Nothing of the shop remains at the address. It is the one storefront among Colette's theatres and apartments, and a reminder of how directly she tried to convert her fame into income.
Key facts
- 6 rue de Miromesnil, 8th arrondissement
- Colette's beauty shop — an institut de beauté
- 1 June 1932
- Her attempt to turn her celebrity into a cosmetics business
- Closed; nothing of the shop remains
In images
Timeline
Colette opens her beauty shop at 6 rue de Miromesnil on 1 June; a society crowd attends.
In November she demonstrates and sells her beauty products at the Printemps store.
The venture closes after little more than a year.
On the map
Writers who knew this place
Within walking distance
American Library in Paris — 10 rue de l'Élysée
The surviving mansion that housed the American Library in Paris from 1920 to 1936—a center of transatlantic reading and literary life where Langston Hughes unsuccessfully asked for work.
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Théâtre Marigny
The theatre in the Champs-Élysées gardens where Colette played Paniska in Pan in 1906.
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Le Bœuf sur le Toit
The bar-cabaret Louis Moysès opened in 1922, named for the Cocteau–Milhaud ballet — headquarters of the postwar avant-garde around Jean Cocteau, and one of Blaise Cendrars's regular Paris stops.
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Hôtel de Crillon
The grandest address on the Place de la Concorde — where Jake Barnes, the narrator of Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, crosses the river to write letters on impressive stationery and drink a Jack Rose with George the barman.
Visit the placeThe Friday Letter
Paris, one address at a time.
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.