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| LOUISIANA PURCHASES | ||
| MARC CHARBONNET EXPLORES HIS NATIVE NEW ORLEANS |
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by Jeffrey Simpson Photography by Bevil Knapp New Orleans is the city of sophistication and voodoo, the home of jazz and Mardi Gras, Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski. It's the city beloved not only by Tennessee Williams but by writers from Mark Twain to George Washington Cable to William Faulkner to Truman Capote. Needless to say, New Orleans, with its multicultural history, decadence and elegance, has some of the most interesting shopping in the United States. And Marc Charbonnet, a New Orleans native and veteran New York interior designer, knows all the secrets, from Royal Street to Magazine Street, from the French Quarter to the Garden District. |
"New Orleans has been a mecca for art and antiques since the early nineteenth century," says Marc Charbonnet. Bottom: St. Lois Cathedral presides over Jackson Square. | |
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"My
father's office was on Royal Street," says Charbonnet, "and as a child I would
go to the French Quarter, to see him, to view Mardi Gras, to visit restaurants and eat
pralines. My parents were horrified that at an early age I could get on the Magazine
Street bus and shop both sides of the street - distinctly lower end then, which is true no
longer." Over the years, as Charbonnet's shopping turned into a significant part of his successful design business, which includes Michael J. Fox as a client (see Architectural Digest, October 1998), he found |
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| Left: "Angele Parlange, who is from an old Louisiana family, carries wonderful fabrics, furniture and accessories" Bottom: The designer stands next to a dressing screen. | ||
| New Orleans to be a source for everything from
eighteenth-century English furniture to Louisiana plantation pieces - and at a fraction of
New York prices. "Sometimes the shops get my shipping order mixed up with other New
York addresses, and I see pieces that are going to the top Madison Avenue antiques
galleries," he says with a wicked grin. "I can tell you that when those items
appear on the floor of Madison Avenue, there's a big difference in price from what it was
in New Orleans. It's no wonder I go home at least 4 times a year just to shop."
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