The elegant Christmas tree will be the centrepiece of the hotel lobby and will be adorned with Repetto delights including pink and black satin ballet shoes, gold medals and Repetto-wrapped presents.

Designed by Victor Louis, the 18th century luxury palace hotel is located in a prestigious spot at La Place de la Comédie, overlooking le Grand Théâtre. Repetto’s Bordeaux boutique is just a stone’s throw away on the Cours de l’Intendance, making the Christmas tree a very neighbourly collaboration.

Here’s a preview sketch of the Repetto christmas tree before the grand unveiling in the lobby of The Grand Hôtel de Bordeaux & Spa…

Founded by Madame Rose Repetto from a tiny Paris studio near the National Opera of Paris in 1947, Repetto ballet shoes have graced the nimble feet of dancing greats from Kirov to Cendrillon.

Since then, they have become synonymous with understated French style and have been a wardrobe staple of Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve and Kate Moss.

Chérie City has long been a fan of Repetto’s exquisite ballet slippers, but on a recent trip to the Selfridges Shoe Galleries, I recently discovered Repetto’s heavenly ballet-inspired handbags.

A Repetto Besace ‘Adage’ bag under the Repetto tree at The Grand Hôtel de Bordeaux & Spa would be the ultimate Christmas dream!

For more info, visit: www.ghbordeaux.com and www.repetto.com

In tribute to the anniversary of the 9/11 attack, a theme that crops up in Beloved, a poignant short documentary about TIFF, which was in full swing at the time of the horrors.  It was inspirational and moving and was fitting for the film.

Refusing to let the legacy of French musicals be killed off by modern cynicism, Christophe Honoré revisits the genre with Beloved (Les Bien Aimés), his last musical offering being Love Songs (Les Chansons d’Amour) in 2007.

For many, it will come as no surprise that Beloved features the Honoré Dream Team of Ludivine Saigner, Louis Garrel and Chiara Mastroianni, with the stellar additions of Catherine Deneuve, Milos Forman and Paul Schneider.

The film begins in glorious 1960s colour (think Jacques Demy’s archetypal musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) when Madeleine’s (Catherine Deneuve) life changes forever when she steal a pair of Roger Vivier shoes from the Paris boutique.  Madeleine stumbles into a second career of turning tricks and falls in love with her john, Jaronil (Rasha Bukvic), a Czech medical student.  He takes his new bride back to bleak Prague, but his infidelity and coldness breaks up their marriage and Madeleine flees back to Paris.  In search of a more stable existence, she marries a French Gendarme, however Jaronil never leaves her life completely.

Flash forward a few decades and the focus is on Madeleine’s free spirited daughter Vera, who works as a teacher (a much tamer career than her mother’s) but is constantly searching for something more in life.  It’s the late-90s and Vera visits London with her friend (Louis Garrel) and one-time lover Clément.  At an underground gig, Vera becomes mesmerised by Henderson, the American drummer in a rock band on tour, who turns out to be gay.  Thus ensues some post-modern confused as they later share a passionate fumble in the public toilets, overheard by Clément, who lets out his suppressed emotions and beats up Henderson.

Later in the film, Vera flies to New York to further complicate her now absent relationship with Henderson but her plane is diverted to Montreal, luckily escaping the tragedy of 9/11.  Add to this Vera’s desire for motherhood, the looming shadow of AIDS, a disastrous threesome, reckless sexual behaviour and a complete emotional breakdown – serious stuff for a musical, you might think!

I couldn’t help finding the relationship between Vera and Henderson slightly unconvincing, but hey, some people do have love lives as tangled and messy as this, and it really drives home Honoré’s point that life in the 21st century can be much more difficult than that in the 1960s.

More ambitious, grown-up and sombre than Love Songs, Beloved is stylish and at times beautiful, leading on from ‘Parisian cool’ to a more global dialogue. The first narrative is more enjoyable to watch, but there are heart-warming, comedic moments later on, such as when Vera comes home to find Madeleine and Jaronil in bed.

Honoré reunited with Love Songs composer Alex Beaupain and the well-crafter, emotive music is trademark Honoré.

I walked out of the film feeling emotionally overwhelmed and drained by the melancholy conclusion, but Madeleine’s theme ‘Je peux vivre sans t’aimer’ never left my head for the rest of TIFF11, like ‘I will wait for you’ from Jacque Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and I was later skipping around Toronto, enchanted by another Honoré classic.

Now on to its 36th year, TIFF is recognised as the most important film festival after Cannes and has become a launch pad for the best of international, Hollywood and Canadian cinema.

Major actors, directors and emerging film-makers decend annually on downtown Toronto to promote their new films, seek distribution deals and present their films to the public and press, often for the first time.

TIFF is fast-paced and manic with a full schedule of red carpet galas at Roy Thomson Hall, public and press screenings, film industry talks and star-studded parties (Soho House hosted a pop up bar this year).

This year, TIFF celebrates the first anniversary of its new year-round home, TIFF Bell Lightbox – an impressive cultural centre and cinematheque, showcasing Canadian and world films.

One of the most anticipated films at TIFF 2011 has arguably been Take This Waltz by Sarah Polley, a quirky indie romantic comedy by Canadian director Sarah Polley, featuring Sarah Silverman, Seth Rogen and Michelle Williams.  Also hotly tipped have been The Ides of March, starring and directed by George Clooney and David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, narrating the troubled friendship between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, featuring Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender and Keira Knightley.

My TIFF highlight was the gala screening of Christophe Honoré’s Beloved, starring Catherine Deneuve and her real-life daughter Chiara Mastroianni, Ludivine Sagnier and my favourite French actor, and long-term Honoré collaborator, Louis Garrel.  But more about that later…

For more information on TIFF and TIFF Bell Lightbox, visit: http://tiff.net

All TIFF Bell Lightbox images: Sam Santos/WireImage for TIFF
Take This Waltz: Michael Gibson

Curated by Saint Laurent’s long-term life and business partner Pierre Bergé and under the patronage of the First Lady of France,Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the exhibition will cover 40 years of creation, from 1962 to 2002. On display will be 300 pieces of Saint Laurent’s haute couture and innovative prêt-à-porter line, Rive Gauche.

The exhibition ranges from Yves Saint Laurent’s beginnings at Dior as Christian Dior’s successor (including his debut trapèze collection) in the 1950s to the Scandale collection following the May 1968 Paris riots to his evening gowns just before his death in 2002.

Yves Saint Laurent turned style rules on their head and revolutionised Paris fashion with his use of masculine tailoring for women.  His signature look Le Smoking tuxedo has been reinterpreted dozens of times and he’s also responsible for popularising the safari suit and the beatnik look.  Pierre Bergé once said: “Chanel liberated the woman, but Yves Saint Laurent gave them power.”

Also on display will be a number of drawings, films and photos chronicling the history the house of Yves Saint Laurent, including an image by photographer Jeanloup Sieff, depicting Yves partially naked for his eau de toilette campaign, and French film star Catherine Deneuve’s entire Yves Saint Laurent wardrobe.

The exhibition also sheds light on Yves Saint Laurent’s influences, such as opera, cinema, theatre (his early collections referencing the theatre sets of Christian Bérard) and painting – his . His travels to Morocco, China and Russia are well documented in the ‘Chinoiserie’ and ‘Opium’ collections that are presented in the exhibition.

Yves Saint Laurent’s influence has been been Marc Jacobs, Jean-Paul Gaultier and Tom Ford .  The house of Yves Saint Laurent still thrives today under the direction of the talented Stefano Pilati, whose deep respect for Saint Laurent’s aesthetic is evident in the collections.  Unlike Tom Ford before him, Pilati understands the subtle sexiness of the strong Parisienne, but isn’t afraid to drive the house forward with futuristic references.

The garments are drawn from the collection of over 5000 piece at the Fondation Pierre Berge – Yves Saint Laurent in Saint Laurent’s former atelier on the Avenue Marceau.

The exhibition runs from 11 March to August 29 at the Petit Palais.  Tickets are €11.

www.yslretrospective.com