To understand la rentrée is to work in Paris at the end of August. It is not just the children returning to school, but the whole country returning from a long summer break. Paris is empty during August until the last week when everyone starts to prepare to return to the normal day to day activities.
In England this idea is foreign to us, as we take our weeks holiday abroad in the sun if we are lucky. The rest of our British summer is a slightly damp affair where work continues and we try to juggle children not at school.
The weather in the UK has been fabulous this year and, at Retrovation, we have had a French summer!
We had a busy June and July, where we did markets in St Albans, Berkhamsted, Kempton and finally Folk by the Oak festival. By the end of July we were ready for a long break and headed down to Devon to enjoy the beautiful hot summer that we have had this year. Computers have been off, Instagram accounts fallen silent and out of office signs put up!
But as we adopted the long holiday in August, so must we now think about la rentrée. For our eldest, this is starting university, for our youngest getting ready for his final A-level year. And for us getting ready for the new season for Retrovation. Before we went away we had already been building our collections for our return and now we are busy sorting out and getting new stock ready.
After our break we are excited to return with some fantastic pieces that are already starting to appear on the website. We will be launching a new collection every week starting on the 27th August, so keep an eye on your mail box.
We have enjoyed a well earned break through August, but we are well and truly back!