Some of the more memorable things I saw at Les Puces (and here), the Marché aux puces (or flea market) of Saint-Ouen, just north of Paris:
- a life-sized fibreglass shark;
- a chair made of twisting animal horns;
- a desk made of a sawed-off portion of a chrome airplane wing (other parts of the same plane formed display shelved elsewhere in that shop);
- a large collection of old keys;
- a shop largely devoted to top hats;
- another shop largely devoted to buddha sculptures;
- a display case with several very cute vintage Chanel purses;
- another display case filled with tiny toy Napoleonic soldiers;
- another display case filled with Chinese ivory figurines, including a few amazing ones that looked like this;
- several times more Art Deco furniture and objects in a single day than I had ever seen before in the whole of my entire life (and they were ALL high quality!);
- enough mid-century Modernist pieces to melt my heart;
- and finally, lots of cigars. It seems that (male) antique dealers are really fond of smoking cigars, even inside their shops...
And of course, I've only seen a small portion of the whole market so far.
(As for why I don't have any pics, let's just say that antique dealers are even more fond of "no photo" signs than they are of cigars.)
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