For most of the twentieth century, Paris was considered the artistic center of Western culture. When Jackie arrived for her year of study, parts of Paris still bore the scars of World War II. But the city leaders worked hard to re-establish Paris as Europe's premiere cultural center and soon attracted a new wave of expatriate writers and artists who brought a new excitement to the galleries, salons, and cafés.

Daily Life

Jackie quickly adapted to daily life in Paris. She explored the city on foot, walking the wide avenues lined with designer shops and out-of-the-way side streets with small, family-owned shops and produce markets. On Sundays, the Left Bank was filled with strolling locals and tourists who browsed through bookshops and ate lunch at sidewalk bistros and listened to music at one of the jazz clubs or went to a movie theater at night.

The Place St. Michel was a traditional gathering place for bohemians. On warm days, sunbathers lined the concrete banks of the Seine, and ice-cream vendors hawked their wares in front of the Louvre. Some streets, like the Rue de Rivoli, were gridlocked with cars, while other streets, hardly wider than a Madison Avenue sidewalk, were deserted except for local residents carrying packages home from the local market.

Fashion

On the Champs-Élysées, Paris's most famous and widest boulevard, or at the fashionable shops and jewelers along the Rue de la Paix, wealthy Parisian women wore the latest designer fashions. In 1950, no clothes designer was more famous than Christian Dior, whose dresses and footwear were a throwback to the glamour days of the 1920s.

World War II had had a dramatic effect on every facet of life. Traditionally, New York designers would go to Europe and attend the Parisian haute couture fashion shows before returning to America to basically copy what they had seen. But after Germany occupied Paris, designers in the United States changed their focus from high fashion to sportswear. Because natural fabrics were in short supply because of the war effort, designers also began using synthetic fibers.

Dior was the first important designer to emerge in postwar France. His styles, which he called the “New Look,” were ultra feminine, with fitted jackets worn with no blouse underneath and full skirts with sharply nipped waistlines. His extravagant use of material, after years of wartime rationing, made a bold statement of opulence. Prior to her trip to Europe, Jackie's interest in fashion was mostly functional — with her broad shoulders, muscular legs, and a small bosom, she dressed to hide what she considered a flawed body. But her time in Paris made her more appreciative of sophisticated designs and more conscious of her own developing style. Once again, she was frustrated by not having enough money to indulge in shopping, further instilling her determination to one day have enough money to buy whatever she wanted.

Paris Café Society

Jackie first became interested in Paris's café society history when she was a student at Miss Porter's and learned about French poet and writer Juliette de Récamier. Born in 1777, de Récamier was only fifteen when her parents forced her to marry a wealthy banker who was much older than she was. Unfulfilled by her marriage, Juliette started Paris's café society when she opened a salon that became a popular place for France's literati and political elite to meet, drink absinthe, and share ideas. Jackie was drawn to de Récamier's intelligence, independence, and devotion to the arts and felt a spiritual kinship with her.

Between the end of World War I and the start of the Great Depression, the most popular cafés were located in the Left Bank neighborhood called Montparnasse. Dôme was frequented mostly during the day and was a favorite breakfast spot. The writer Ezra Pound spent afternoons at Dôme playing chess. Matisse, the famous Impressionist painter, was also a Dôme regular, as was Picasso, who would doodle on napkins and sometimes on the tablecloths.

After World War II there was a shift away from Montparnasse to cafés along the Boulevard Saint-Germain. The two most popular were Les Deux Magots and its nearby rival, Café de Flore. Philosophers and life partners Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir relaxed at Les Deux while the Flore attracted artists such as Salvador Dalí and Joan Miró. But their notoriety also made them popular tourist destinations, driving most of the noted patrons away by the time Jackie spent her year in Paris.