Fashion’s Final Frontier in the Haut Marais of Paris

“Seven years ago, when Paris’s queen of concept stores, Merci, pioneered in the nether regions of the Marais, the term “haut Marais” barely existed. In contrast to the neighbourhood’s boutique and tourist-crammed midriff, the rabbit warren of tiny streets in the northern triangle of the 3rd arrondissement– between Rue de Bretagne to the south, Rue du Temple to the west and Boulevard du Temple to the east – remained a quaint but dingy assortment of old notions shops and grimy storefronts that serviced this old garment-making district. Merci was an island of chic on the leafy Boulevard Beaumarchais (the southern extension of Boulevard du Temple, also, confusingly, called the Boulevard des Filles-du-Calvaire for two blocks), a sleepy, mile-long thoroughfare connecting Place de la République and Place de la Bastille.”