Tuileries Garden: The Garden Fashion Photogs Love

Photo by Chris Card Fuller ©2007
The Tuileries Garden, located on Paris’s Right Bank, bordered by the Louvre on one side, the Orangerie and Jeu de Paume on the other, and Musee d’Orsay just across the Seine River is the perfect place to soothe your sore feet in between museum treks, but more than that, the Tuileries is an ideal park for fashion shoots - with or without tourists.

A case in point is Harper’s Bazaar lead fashion shoot for December, 2007: Renee Zellweger tripping along garden paths in Armani alongside a gaggle of tourists in jeans, flip-flops and an assortment of running shoes. You have to give photographer Peter Lindbergh credit for creating a fashion photo - which really makes you feel like you’re there (maybe you WERE there!).

The Tuileries has plenty of places ‘away from the crowd - if you just choose to race up the steps that Zellweger is trying to race down in her Christian Lacroix skirt and Roger Vivier shoes, you’ll find sculpture that hardly resembles the more classic sculptures at ground level.

The Good Samaritan
Photo by Chris Card Fuller ©2007

Cain and Abel
Photo by Chris Card Fuller ©2007

This is clearly a park with a multi-dimensional personality. At first glance, you might too quickly pigeonhole this park as being a typical example of a formal French garden with its carefully dilineated rows of tulip beds, it’s broad walkways, and the round reflecting pools.
It was designed by Andre Le Notre in 1664. He was the royal garden architect also responsible for the gardens at Versailles.

However, the introduction of Maillol sculptures in the past 20th century and other surprising sculpture that pops up in places where you hardly expect to find it, plus the summer amusement park facing Rue de Rivoli, and the ferris wheel are all flights of fancy that one would hardly expect to find in a formerly royal garden.

Before the the Tuileries Palace was burned to the ground, this was the stomping grounds of royalty - and for a brief time during the French Revolution, it was a sort of outdoor cage for the royal family before they were ultimately put out of their misery. Even though the Tuileries palace was burned down long after the French Revolution (in the 1870s during the rule of the Commune), the vehemence toward symbols of privilege had hardly abated. It took 48 hours to put out a fire that destroyed a palace ordered by Catherine de Medici in the 1500s. Did they know how to build in those days, or what? Fortunately for us, although parts of the Louvre were damaged by fire, the majority of the Louvre palace and museum survived.

You don’t need to be a fashion photographer or a fashion model (or even in show business) to enjoy this park. Just bring your camera and dress up or dress down as much as you please.

Keep in mind that if you arrive at high noon on a summer’s day, you’ll be happy you brought a hat and shades. The soft light of spring and fall can be the best time to catch some great shots in this park - or a snack at the park cafe shaded by trees - or a late afternoon snooze around the reflecting pool.

If you stand in the center of the Tuileries Garden, you can try to locate ‘the spine’ of Paris: In one direction, you should be able to see all the way down the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. Beyond the Arc, lies Francois Mitterand’s legacy, the Grand Arch in La Defense. In the opposite direction, you can try lining up the Carrousel du Louvre (a miniature version of the Arc de Triomphe), the IM Pei’s pyramid - and much farther away (and not to be seen from ground level), La Bastille (the actual Bastille no longer exists - it was demolished during the French revolution) and the July Column takes its place.

Getting to the Tuileries:
Metro stops: Tuileries, Palais Royal, Concorde.

Food: In good weather, you can lunch outdoors. The park cafe operates even in cool weather, offering a ‘vin chaud’ or hot wine to take off the chill of a winter’s day.