(Sur l'air de Malbrouck.)

Dans l'affreux cimetière,
Paris tremble, ô douleur, ô misère !
Dans l'affreux cimetière
Frémit le nénuphar.

Castaing lève sa pierre,
Paris tremble, ô douleur, ô misère !
Castaing lève sa pierre
Dans l'herbe de Clamar,

Et crie et vocifère,
Paris tremble, ô douleur, ô misère !
Et crie et vocifère :
Je veux être césar !

Cartouche en son suaire,
Paris tremble, ô douleur, ô misère !
Cartouche en son suaire
S'écrie ensanglanté

- Je veux aller sur terre,
Paris tremble, ô douleur, ô misère !
Je veux aller sur terre
Pour être majesté !

Mingrat monte à sa chaire,
Paris tremble, ô douleur, ô misère !
Mingrat monte à sa chaire,
Et dit, sonnant le glas :

- Je veux, dans l'ombre où j'erre,
Paris tremble, ô douleur, ô misère !
Je veux, dans l'ombre où j'erre
Avec mon coutelas,

Etre appelé : mon frère,
Paris tremble, ô douleur, ô misère !
Etre appelé : mon frère,
Par le czar Nicolas !

Poulmann, dans l'ossuaire,
Paris tremble, ô douleur, ô misère !
Poulmann dans l'ossuaire
S'éveillant en fureur,

Dit à Mandrin : - Compère,
Paris tremble, ô douleur, ô misère !
Dit à Mandrin : - Compère,
Je veux être empereur !

- Je veux, dit Lacenaire,
Paris tremble, ô douleur, ô misère !
Je veux, dit Lacenaire,
Etre empereur et roi !

Et Soufflard déblatère,
Paris tremble, ô douleur, ô misère !
Et Soufflard déblatère,
Hurlant comme un beffroi :

- Au lieu de cette bière,
Paris tremble, ô douleur, ô misère !
Au lieu de cette bière,
Je veux le Louvre, moi

Ainsi, dans leur poussière,
Paris tremble, ô douleur, ô misère !
Ainsi, dans leur poussière,
Parlent les chenapans.

- Çà, dit Robert Macaire,
Paris tremble, ô douleur, ô misère !
- Ça, dit Robert Macaire,
Pourquoi ces cris de paons ?

Pourquoi cette colère ?
Paris tremble, ô douleur, ô misère !
Pourquoi cette colère ?
Ne sommes-nous pas rois ?

Regardez, le saint-père,
Paris tremble, ô douleur, ô misère !
Regardez, le saint-père,
Portant sa grande croix,

Nous sacre tous ensemble,
Ô misère, ô douleur, Paris tremble !
Nous sacre tous ensemble
Dans Napoléon trois !

Bury me in Paris, when my heart stops and my eyes open wide,
next to Beckett or Sarte & de Beauvoir, ménage à trois.
Bury me in Paris, where the tourists go,
on the Champs-Élysées, or near the home of Picasso.
Bury me in Paris where the Seraphs scoff and roll their brown eyes
and the saints sell paints on the edge of the Seine’s grime.
Bury me in Paris between the pavement and le Métro,
take my body to whatever stop, just go.

Bury me in Paris on a winter’s night,
beneath the Louvre pyramid light.
Bury me in Paris with Lady Liberty in tow,
make my bed next to de Balzac, next to Marceau.
Bury me in Paris at the foot of l’Obélisque
accompanied by pharaohs, exhumed.
Bury me in Paris, leave me there, I guess,
in the hotel room overlooking the Arc. I, fully dressed.

Bury me in Paris while listening to Robespierre’s final scream,
the silence drowned out only by the guillotine.
Bury me in Paris, Montrouge, your angel calls to me,
that one who serves macarons at the head of the Tuileries.
Bury me in Paris, with the Angel, unimpressed,
next to her, I, in eternal rest.
Bury me in Paris, toss me off Bir-Hakiem, splashing,
or under tour Eiffel in the springtime night, waking.
Bury me in Paris, my body yearns to be free and true,
but if I am to die in New Orleans, bon Ange de Montrouge,
Bury me there with the jazz worms, singing:
“Angel, come to me, come to me, Angel, come.”

she said the rain reminded her of Paris
can almost hear the cafe's and distant lovers laugh
can almost feel Paris 'neath my feet
she is Paris in my mind
Paris in the rain...

melancholy on her face with that distant heartfelt...

the rain slips away
she said she wanted to walk in the garden
in summer bloom
linger there by shady tree...

rest herself on the wooden bench framed in sunshine
her perfume lingers on the trail
of her soft footsteps
a seductive path to her secret heart
she says she is compelled to ask
but the silence follows her words...

her long white dress
reflecting beautifully in the summer air
her long white dress
once reflecting enticing moment at a time
she hums the tune to that song
the one she so loved in Paris
the one that played on that night of joys
the one that she held him so much
not me    not me    not me
she is Paris in my mind
Paris in the rain...

I am withdrawing from the beautiful image of her
without moving she is getting farther and farther away
no more Paris in the rain for me
no more song for me
she will always be that Paris in the rain
Paris in the rain

© 2017 mark john junor all rights reserved

Shortly after 3pm on September 29, 31-year-old Olivier Rousteing strode through the shimmering, fleshy backstage area at Balmain's Spring 2017 Paris Fashion Week show. Along the marble hallway of a hôtel particulier in the 8th arrondissement, long-limbed clusters of supermodels were gamely tolerating final applications of leg-moisturiser, make-up touch-ups and minutely precise hair interventions from squads of specialists as fast and accurate as any Formula 1 pit-stop team. The crowd parted as Rousteing swept through.

Wearing a belted, black silk tuxedo and a focused expression that accentuated his razor-sharp cheekbones, Rousteing resembled a sensuous hit man. Target identified, he led us to the board upon which photographs of every outfit were tacked.

We asked him to tell us about the collection (for that's what fashion editors always ask). "There is no theme," said Rou­steing in his fast, French-accented lilt. "No inspiration from travel or time. The inspiration is what I feel, and what I feel now is peace, light and serenity. I feel like in my six years here before this, I have tried to fight so many battles. Because there is no point anymore in fighting about boundaries and limits in fashion. Balmain has its place in fashion."

And the clothes? "There is a lot of fluidity. A lot of knitwear, lightness, ponchos. No body-con dresses. But whatever I do, even if I cover up my girls, it is like people can say I am ******. So this is what it is. I think there is nothing ******. I think it is really chic. I think it is really French. It is how I see Paris. And I have had too many haters during the last three years to defend myself again. So, this is Balmain." And then the show began.

Star endorsements

Under Rousteing, Balmain has become the most controversial fashion house in Paris. Rousteing has attracted (but not bought, as other, far bigger houses do) patronage from contemporary culture's most significant influencers. Rihanna, all the Kardashians, Kanye West, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé, Justin Bieber – a royal flush of modern celebrity aristocracy – all champion him.

Immediately after this show, in that backstage hubbub, Kim Kardashian told me: "I thought it was very powerful…I loved the sequins, and I loved all the big chain mail belts – that was probably my favourite."

Yet for every famous fan there is a member of the fashion establishment who will sniff over coffee in Le Castiglione that Rousteing's crowd is declassé and his aesthetic best described by that V-word. The New York Times' fashion critic Vanessa Friedman reckoned this collection appropriate for "dressing for the captain's dinners on a cruise ship to Fantasy Island". At least she did not use the V-word. When I once deployed it – as a compliment – in a 2015 Vogue menswear review that declared "Rousteing is confidently negotiating a fine line between extravagance and vulgarity", I was told that Rous­teing was aggrieved.

The fashion world's ambivalence towards Rousteing is a measure of its conflicted feelings towards much in contemporary culture. Last year Robin Givhan of the Washington Post wrote of Balmain: "The French fashion house is always ostentatious and sometimes ******. It feeds a voracious appetite for attention. It is anti-intellectual. Antagonistic. Emotional. It is shocking. It is perfect for this era of social media, which means it is powerfully, undeniably relevant."

Since joining Instagram four years ago Rousteing has posted 4000 images and won 4 million followers. The combined reach of his audience members and models at this Balmain show was greater than the population of Britain and France combined. Balmain was the first French fashion house to gain more than 1 million followers, and currently has 5.5 million of them.

Loving his haters

As digital technology disrupts fashion, Balmain's seemingly effortless mastery of the medium galls some. Last year, the designer posted an image of a comment from a ****** follower to his feed. It read: "Olivier Rousteing spends more times taking selfies for Instagram than designing clothes for Balmain." Underneath, in block capitals, he commented "i love my haters".

Rousteing can be funny and flip – doing a video interview after the show, I opened by asking, tritely, how he felt. He replied: "Now I feel like some Chicken McNuggets with barbecue sauce, and then some M&M;'s ice cream."

When at work, however, that flipness flips to entirely unflip. The previous evening, at a final fitting for the collection, Rousteing had paced his studio, his face a scowl of concentration, applying final edits to the outfits to be worn by models Doutzen Kroes and Alessandra Ambrosio. The 30-strong team of couturiers working in the adjoining atelier delivered a steady stream of altered dresses.

"We are ready," he said from behind a glass desk in a rare moment of downtime. "This a big show – 80 looks – and I want a collection that is full of both the commercial and couture. But it's smooth too. All of the girls are excited about the after-party and interested in the music. And eating pizza." In the corridor outside Gigi Hadid – this season's apex supermodel – was indeed eating pizza, with gusto.

The fitting went on until far beyond midnight; Rousteing, fiercely focused, demonstrated the work ethic for which he is famous. When he was studio manager for Christophe Decarnin, his predecessor at Balmain, the young then-unknown was always the first in and last out of the studio. Emmanuel Diemoz, who joined Balmain as finance controller in 2001 and became chief executive in 2011, says that his hard graft was one of the reasons he was chosen to succeed Decarnin.

"For sure it was quite a gamble," says Diemoz. "But we could see the talent of Olivier. Plus he understood the work of Christophe – who had helped the brand recover – so he represented continuity. He was a hard worker, clearly a leader, with a lot of creativity. Plus the size of the turnover at that time was not so huge. So we were able to take the risk."

Clear leader

Which is why, aged 24, Rousteing became the creative director of one of Paris's best known – but indubitably faded – fashion houses. In 2004 it had been close to bankruptcy. In 2012, Rousteing's first full year in charge, Balmain's sales were €30.4 million and its profit €3.1 million. In 2015, sales were €121.5 million and its profit €33 million. Vulgarity is subjective; numbers are not.

Rousteing, who is of mixed race, was adopted at five months by white parents and enjoyed an affluent and loving upbringing in Bordeaux. "My mum is an optician and my dad was running the port. They are both really scientific – not artistic. So I had that kind of life. Bordeaux is really bourgeois and really conservative, I have to say."

After an ill-starred three-month stint at law school – "I was doing international law. And I was like, 'oh my God, that is so boring'" – he did a fashion course that he managed to tolerate for five months.

"I found that really boring as well. I just don't like actually people who are trying to **** your dream. And I felt that is what my teachers were trying to do."

Obsessed with Gucci

Following a three-month internship in Rome – "also boring" – Rousteing became fascinated with Tom Ford's work at Gucci. "I was obsessed, obsessed, obsessed. Sometimes the press did not get it but I thought 'this is like genius, the new **** chic'. Obsessed, full stop."

He wanted to work there – "that was my dream" – but applied to every fashion house he could, and found an opportunity to intern at Roberto Cavalli. "They took me in from the beginning. I met Peter Dundas [then womenswear designer at the brand] and he said you are going to be my right hand – and start in four days."

Rousteing counts his five years in Italy as formative both creatively and commercially, but when the opportunity came to return to France in 2009 he leapt at it. "Christophe said he liked my work and that he needed someone to manage the studio. So two weeks later I was here. I loved Balmain at the time, when Christophe was in charge. It was all about rock 'n' roll chic, ****, Parisian. And he was appealing to a younger generation. You can see when brands become old but Balmain was touching this new audience. I always say Christophe's Balmain was Kate Moss but mine is Rihanna."

When Decarnin left and Rousteing replaced him, the response was a resounding "who?". His youth prompted some to anticipate failure.

"It was not easy at all. Every season I had the same questions." Furthermore, Rousteing (who has said he thinks of himself as neither black nor white) was the only non-white chief designer at a Parisian couture house. In a nation in which very few people of colour hold senior positions, his race may have contributed both to the establishment's suspicion of him and to his powerful sense of being an outsider.

'Beautiful spirit'

As he began to build a personal vernacular of close-fitted, heavily jewelled, gleefully grandiose menswear – fantastical uniform for a Rousteing-imagined gilded age – for both women and men, that V-word loomed.

"They asked, 'But is it luxury? Is it chic? Is it modern?' All those kinds of words. But you know there is no one definition [of fashion] even if people in Paris think there is. And, I'm sorry, but I think the crowd in fashion are those who understand the least what is avant-garde today."

In 2013 Rihanna visited the studio, met Rousteing, and reported all with multiple Instagram posts. "You are the most beautiful spirit, so down to earth and kind! @olivier_rousteing I think I'm in love!!! #Balmain." :')"

Rousteing met Kim Kardashian at a party in New York – they were drawn together, he recalls, because they were both shy – and was promptly invited to lunch with her family in Los Angeles.

An outsider in the firmament of old-guard Paris fashion, Rousteing was earning insider status within a new, and much more influential, supranational elite. He points out that Valentino, Saint Laurent and Pierre Balmain himself "were close to the jet set of their time. What I have on my front row is the people who inspire my generation".

From them, he learned a new way of doing business. "I think it was Rihanna and the music industry that first understood how Instagram can be part of the business world as well as the personal. But in fashion? When we started it was 'why do you post selfies? Why do we need to know your life, see you waking up, see you working? Why don't you keep it private'. And I was like 'you will see'."

Rousteing cheerfully declares his love for Facetune – "I don't have Botox but I do have digital Botox!" – an app that helps him airbrush his selfies and tweak those ski-***** cheekbones.

Reaching new population

From his office around the corner from Rousteing's, Diemoz adds: "When Olivier first proposed Balmain use social media, our investment in traditional media was costing a lot. Here was an alternative costing less but bringing huge visibility. It has been successful, quite rapidly…we decided to be less Parisian in a way but to speak to a new population. A brand has to be built around its heritage but we are proposing a new form of communication dedicated to a wider group of customers."

The impact of that strategy became apparent in 2015, when Rousteing and Balmain were invited to design a collection for the Swedish fast-fashion retailer H&M.; Within minutes of going on sale – and this is not hyperbole – the collection, available at vastly cheaper prices than Balmain-proper, had completely sold out. In London, customers fought on the pavement outside H&M;'s Regent Street branch. "Balmainia!" blared the headlines.

You have to move fast to get backstage after a Balmain show. I was out of my seat and trotting with purpose even before the string-heavy orchestra at the end of the catwalk had quite stopped playing Adele.

Rousteing had taken his bow merely seconds before. Still, too slow: I ended up in a clot of Rousteing well-wishers stuck in a corridor blocked by security guards. A Middle Eastern woman against whom I was indelicately jammed looked at me, laughed, shook her head, then said: "We pay millions for a fashion house – and then this happens!"

In June, Balmain was bought for a reported €485 million by Mayhoola, a Qatar-based wealth fund said to be controlled by the nation's ruling family. As so often with Rousteing-related revelations, some declared themselves nonplussed. "Why Would Mayhoola Pay Such a High Price for Balmain?", one headline asked. Yet Mayhoola, which acquired Valentino four years previously for $US858 million, might have scored a bargain.

Clothes key to revenue

Despite its huge, Instagram-enhanc­ed footprint, Balmain is a small, lean and relatively undeveloped business. Most luxury fashion houses today – Chanel, Burberry, Dior, et al – will emphasise their catwalk collections for marketing purposes but make most of their money from the sale of accessories, fragrances and small leather goods like handbags and shoes. One of the big fashion companies makes a mere 5 per cent from its catwalk clothes.

At Balmain, by contrast, clothes bring in almost all the revenues. If Balmain had the same clothes-to-accessories ratio as its competitors, its overall annual income could be more than €1 billion ($1.4 billion).

The company is moving in that direction. New accessory lines are in the pipeline. "Now we have to transform that desire into business activity," said Diemoz. "Sunglasses, belts, fragrances, the kind of products that can be more affordable."

The first bags should be available in January, as will a wider range of shoes, and then more, more, more.

Six days after his show, on the last day of Paris Fashion Week, I returned to the Balmain atelier. Apart from two assistants, Rousteing was the only person there – everybody else had gone on holiday to recover from the frenzy of preparing the show, or was busy selling the collection at the showroom around the corner.

Rousteing sat behind his desk in the empty room, wearing slingback leopard-print slippers, sweatpants and shades. "I am not even tired! I am excited. Because there are so many things happening – and I can't wait."Read more at:www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses | http://www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-adelaide

Please help pray for Paris. I feel so helpless and sad tonight. I wish it wasn´t real.

Paris

Friday night in Budapest
Music echoing in a bar
A man and woman well dressed
Walking towards their car

Friday night in Paris
Sirens echoing in the street
Chaos rapidly embowering bliss
Ground shaking under running feet

Friday night in Oslo
Laughter and good wine
Tall candlesticks standing aglow
Faces losing track of time

Friday night in Paris
Laughter twisting into cries
Searching for those you miss
As black smoke fills the skies

Friday night in Berlin
Together watching a football game
Hoping that your team will win
Cheering with a poster of their name

Friday night in Paris
Blood on the big green field
Lying on the ground alive you wish
That it simply isn't real

Friday night in London
Going out with a friend
Hearing the ringing of big ben
Thinking of how much to spend

Friday night in Paris
Crowds shattered by gunshots and hate
On your knees filled with anguish
You loved, but now it is too late

Friday night in Rome
Midnight walks under the sky
Couples together, walking home
Others turning to say goodbye

Friday night in Paris
Hate took away the morning
No words can fix this
Or dry the tears of the mourning

Paris: immutable
permanent marker
dream.

I love you like
the giddy sparkle-crack,
irrational love
found in picture-book fairy tales
I outgrew by
13. You are
my desperate idealism
romanticized into sepia wallpaper
on my laptop screen so
hi there.
Hi, Eiffel Tower.
I think I know your contours
better than a man knows the outlines of his lover but
Paris.
My feelings run
still.
Stiller than still, like
blood gone cold
in love's deep-freeze,
I'm fixated.

Paris, you've got
a residence permit
without an expiration
date
to live in the red beating
city
within me
where no boy has ever kept up his rent and
what,
           what
what does that say about me?
That I reach out my arms to
a rose-tinted Google image
rather than a
tangible embrace waiting for me at my
locker every day.

Why can I serenade you
but not even speak about him?

Paris, I don't think...
I don't think I should love you so
fairly.
For you are my soul investment
but we won't breakeven.
And they warned me,
Paris, they warned me
that you are most beautiful in the rain.
How gorgeous, how
dangerous,
in this age of acidity.

You do not need me
when countless 'artistes'
make love to you
on camera rolls, ivory keys, second-hand
typewriters of silk-faced men.
You do not need me.
Even history has shaped you
into an evenly symmetrical heart
on the map.
You do not need me
but I gorge myself on your
romance
to keep me sane.

Who needs therapy when there's the Champs-Elysées?

And I know that you're crumbling
like, God, yes, the pastries in your abandoned patisseries. I
know that you're crumbling
beneath pink candy wrappers and Casablanca
scene imitations so
that's why
they say you disappoint.

My aunt had a suite at the Ritz but
emailed to tell me
about the soot-stained post office
on rue-this or rue-that and
what,
         what,
what does that say about you?

Is that why they took
all the locks off your eternal bridge,
discarded each love-tale
attached to your hinges
because you were
                               heaving?
Vomiting out love because
it was over-indulgence, like
you'd stuffed yourself on red velvet cupcakes
to find you couldn't digest all that romance and
Paris,

I'm holding you tightly.

My feelings irrationally match
with some product with a price-sticker that reads
'true love'.
Did I tell you I cherish your flaws?
The smoke snuck on buildings and
vines like
veins
bleeding honeysuckles onto windowpanes
and brusque sandwich orders
in some seedy cafe.

I want to crawl
into your chinks and spaces,
make little dark coves
in each little gap where
I can sit and
read.
I can read.

I can read you.

Paris, you are
the postcard that never
came in the mail
but I somehow found
in an empty drawer one day and
I love you.

Paris, I love you.
I'm writing it now but
in some beautiful future,
I'll tell you in person.

Life Is Like
A Video Game
You Work Hard
You Earn
Something
And Unlock
Something
And Possibly
Become A Leader
One Day
But,
An Expert
Was Once
A Beginner
A Follower
Which Lead
Him To
Determination
Hard workmanship
Commitment
And Like
A Chain
He Could
Have Stayed There
In The Chains
But,
He Left His Demise
And Found A Key
Way Out Of
Death
Or Maybe Regret
~Paris Styron~

You May Have
A Script
But,
That Does Not
Mean You Know
How To Use
It
~Paris Styron~

Do Not Love
Me
Because My Love
Is A Star That
Will Always Be
Wished Upon
My Love Is So Strong
You Will Turn Into Stone
If You Were To
Break My Heart
That Star Will Turn
Into Scars
That Will Shine Alone
That You Will
Later Realize
You Wish You Had Me
And, Still
Would Wish Upon
That Star
~Paris Styron~

Pain Is
A Gain
Of Progress
~Paris Styron~

Humiliation
Is A Form Of
Unitity
In Ones Self
One Step Closer
Of A Human Being
~Paris Styron~

Let The Writing
Talk, And Your Thoughts
Express
Let The Tears
Run Down
Your Face
That Covered
Pain
Now Tears Drop
To The Floor
Behind Doors
That Whats
Keep The Floors
Crying
~Paris Styron~

Loneliness
Is A Tool
Which Can Turn Into
Solitude
Thus A Piece Of Mind
~Paris Styron~

Music Is A Thing
Trapped Inside
A Man World
~Paris Styron~

I Will Be A Scar
That Is A Star
In Your Eyes
You Will Wish Upon
~Paris Styron~

Night Of The Coolness
Moon Of The Light
Carry My Sadness Away
Everyday
Every Night
From This Day On
~Paris Styron~

Carry Your
Sorrows With
Kindness
Not Anger,
Rage
Not Slaughter
~Paris Styron~

The city’s all a-shining
Beneath a fickle sun,
A gay young wind’s a-blowing,
The little shower is done.
But the rain-drops still are clinging
And falling one by one—
Oh it’s Paris, it’s Paris,
And spring-time has begun.

I know the Bois is twinkling
In a sort of hazy sheen,
And down the Champs the gray old arch
Stands cold and still between.
But the walk is flecked with sunlight
Where the great acacias lean,
Oh it’s Paris, it’s Paris,
And the leaves are growing green.

The sun’s gone in, the sparkle’s dead,
There falls a dash of rain,
But who would care when such an air
Comes blowing up the Seine?
And still Ninette sits sewing
Beside her window-pane,
When it’s Paris, it’s Paris,
And spring-time’s come again.