Some of Charbonnet's current favorites in the city start at the top of the long curve of Magazine Street, in the neighboorhood of Tulane University. The stores are dotted through the Garden District, the area built up with white colonnaded mansions by "Americans" after the purchase of the city from the French in 1803. The designer also ventures into Warehouse District, near the river, a formerly seedy site that experienced a revival after the World's Fair in 1984. He often ends up in the French Quarter, The Vieux Carre, the glamorous and mysterious heart of the old city, where it all began in 1718.

Charbonnets' first stop is at the shop of Angele Parlange, in a white clapboard building not too far from the university. "Angele's a remarkable talent," he says. "She's the best of today and the best of yesterday." He explains that Parlange's family still owns and operates the eighteenth century Parlange Plantation, which has one of the most distinguished Louisiana houses on it - built in the "raised cottage" style - where she grew up. One of her ancestors was Mme Gautreau, the subject of John Singer Sargent's portrait Madame X.

The shop has pillows made with fabric designed by Perlange and decorated with unusual trim, and antiques, jewelry and home accessories. "I do a lot of entertaining, so I've made collections relating to that - placemats, napkins and so forth," she says. "You can find what you're looking for there, but she also has the most unexpected things," concludes Charbonnet, citing a collection of eighteenth-century prints that he has used in his New York office, which shows the habits of religious orders.