Walking into this poetic workshop, hidden at the back of the L’Officine Universelle Buly, is a rural storehouse, selling dry flowers for bottled or hand arranged bouquets. Right out of an ancient myth. As you enter, a medley of magnificent dried flowers hang from the ceiling, and then you find the beauté Japonaise, clad in the uniform of a couture atelier – the white coat. The Ancient Myth takes a step back into more meaningful and romantic times. Modeler Tip: Ask the beauté Japonaise to calligraph your bouquet.

Hiding in the tiny, surf chic village of Guéthary, outside Biarritz is the fantastical Vegetable Salon, Yaoya. Seduced by its otherworldliness from the beautiful pages of The World of Interiors, whilst sipping British milky tea back home, in my mother’s guest house… A Basque village, with an Epicerie with such finesse had to be explored. So I did. Aï and Cédric, a Japanese/Basque couple bring the creme de la creme of French produce to Yaoya, down to the magnificent & mountainous organic sourdough bread, made by Bertrand Ducauroy in his Ciboure bakery, Etxe Goxoan. The locals’ repeat bread orders makes for beautiful assemblage on the corner wall, where the bread is cut. One can imagine them as art. Every nook and cranny here is thought through and has profound meaning. … a Vegetable Salon it is.