Just when I thought I couldn't pedal any more, we came around the corner from the side streets we had been biking and out onto Avenue Gambetta, Pere Lachaise Cemetery's mossy walls coming into view. The basket on my rickety bicycle was packed full of delightful comestibles we gathered on our way— sweet brie, late summer figs, a little jar of clover honey, and a fresh baguette—an impromptu picnic-field trip for an August afternoon.
All week long we had been listening to the Edith Piaf records we had found at the flea market, over and over again, her sparrow's voice filling our little apartment with the dreams of a bygone era. Rowdy or romantic, tragic or tawdry, it was her sound alone shaped the City of Lights for us. When I awoke that morning, I knew we had to go visit her; we packed our bikes and a bottle of lemonade and set out across the city.
We cruised the whole city in search of her memory: down the Champs Elysees and past the place where she first performed at Le Gerny; through her childhood haunts in the red-light district where the Moulin Rouge lit up the night for the street acrobats and singers; to the Olympia Music Hall with its timeless facade; along the Seine to the old Latin Quarter, and finally here, to the cemetery. Parking our bikes and straightening our dresses, we set off into the depths of the labyrinth of mausoleums in search of the black granite grave.
When we found it, tucked in among the others in a long corridor, we unpacked our spread and lunched in her shadow, singing "La Vie En Rose" and "Milord" to one another, toasting her legacy, the insouciant care of youth, life, flea market records, and the beauty of days past. As the day faded and we ran out of songs to sing, we made one last toast to the Sparrow, packed up and biked home, our Paris just a little brighter, a little younger. Somewhere, from an open window, the sound of an accordionist practicing Hymne a l'amour drifted out into the night…
This is the time of life for which the Triumph line was created. This collection was inspired by Paris's undeniably fashionable women—like Piaf, Josephine Baker, Coco Chanel and others—and the dresses embrace their mischief and playfulness, their romantic souls, and their show-stopping starlet quality. Whether you wear the Oh La La to saturday brunch at a sidewalk cafe, or the Marais to the Opera, let yourself be inspired by the City of Light: find something spontaneous inside of you and embrace it. Go ahead, buy the lilac pumps, try the escargot, tell that beautiful stranger at the table next to you that you love him. In the end, it will all be worth it.
