Quoi de neuf - French shopping in March 2019

Are you MAD for cycyling?

With spring now here, it is time to dust off the lycra cycling shorts and hit the open road – or at least to pop to the shops. But perhaps you need a little assistance for those pesky inclines?

MAD is the name of a new Vélo à Assistance Electrique (VAE), an electric bike made near Nantes. The name is a deliberately cheeky Anglophile play on words, say inventors Charles Hurtebize and Guillaume Adriansen, childhood friends who are now 30-year-old entrepreneurs with backgrounds in fashion and mountain biking. The bike was two years in development.

Ecological, practical and at a competitive price (from €1,990) it offers high quality technical features: LCD screen to indicate battery power and when to use it (up to 50km on average), Shimano gears and Brooks saddle.

www.levelomadinfrance.fr

Flower power potion lotion

Alors Ça Pousse? is a Burgundy-based artisanal cosmetics company created by Gaëlle Péchot that takes a holistic approach to creating its beauty products – it even grows its own flowers for full ‘seed to pot’ kudos.

As well as balms (for both men and women) for the face, it also creates a ‘Botanic Potion’, which “tones
devitalized skin tissues”. The lotion includes cornflower, lavender and camomile, with each of the plants contained within it allied with one of the body’s seven energy centres.

Even the plants themselves are grown in permaculture and in harmony with the moon. €22 for a 50g bottle.

alorscapousse.com

Bake and break

Few things tantalise the taste buds quite like a perfectly baked baguette from your favourite boulangerie. But have you ever thought about baking your own?

The brainchild of Eva Broussou, La French Baguette is a DIY baguette pack made in Normandy. Each €9.80 kit contains two bags of ingredients: yeast and 100% French flour, plus wooden spoon, a quantity of salt, cardboard mould, a Vichy print bread basket and the all-important recipe.

www.frenchbaguette.fr/indexen

Designer furniture is affordable

HARTÔ is a Paris-based design brand which works alongside talented furniture, lighting, textile and storage unit designers then distributes the finished products on their website and in many shops in France.

Among the designers whose work is supported by Hartô is Elisabeth Hertzfeld, a French-American designer born in Paris in 1972 who graduated from the Ecole nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.

She has created the Ernestin newspaper/magazine storage range in metal with removable walnut top. Perfect for keeping your copies of Connexion close to hand in the salon, ideally with a coffee perched on top!

Dimensions: 44cm high, 33cm wide. Price €99.80, delivery within three weeks.

www.hartodesign.fr