Aje’s Edwina Forest on where she shops in Paris
Edwina Forest, the co-founder and creative director of Aje, has relocated to the French capital and shares her favourite spots.
Edwina Forest has been dressing women in beautiful, flattering, well-cut clothing for 15 years after founding Aje with her best friend and business partner Adrian Norris. She met Norris at a Brisbane house party in 2006 when he was about to open a fashion boutique in Noosa and she had just taken a job as a fashion editor in Sydney.
They kept in touch and soon identified a gap in the Australian market for contemporary womenswear that could be worn in the city, to a party or even on a beach and so Aje (an acronym for Adrian joined Edwina) was born.
Forest’s designs are unafraid of voluminous sleeves or skirts and Aje has become known for its stunning statement dresses. In the past few years, Norris and Forest have expanded into active wear (Aje Athletica) and skincare (Ikkari) and there are now 44 boutiques across Australia and New Zealand. Aje is also stocked in department stores around the world and the company are planning to open one in New York next year.
Forest met her French husband Felix Forest, a photographer, in 2013 and the couple have two children. She has visited Paris on and off over the past decade and relocated there with her family three months ago. The designer loves the City of Light for its history, vibrancy and sense of anonymity.
“Everything in Paris moves me,” she says. “It’s like spiritual sandpaper; it rubs you raw but also completely elates the soul. I’m particularly energised by the vibrancy of the streets in the Marais. It’s like a stage, everyone’s dressing to play a part.”
Forest also finds the city inspiring when coming up with multiple collections for Aje every year. “It’s really moving for me to see people taking risks with layers, proportions, colours clashes,” she says of the way Parisians dress. “There are no rules. It feels very liberating from a design perspective.”
Favourite restaurants in Paris
I used to crisscross all over the city to visit restaurants and now I just stay local in the Marais. I love Wild & the Moon, a vegan restaurant, or Cafe Charlot for breakfast, Soma, a little Japanese restaurant for lunch, Ogata for Mochi in the afternoon and Glou for a natural wine aperitif and early dinner. We also often go to Breitz cafe as a family for oysters and galettes.
The best places to shop
I love to shop vintage. There are so many exceptional vintage stores and most are in my neighbourhood. For books and magazines, I love OFR Bookshop in the 3rd arrondissement as well as Les Puces, the flea market in Saint-Ouen for furniture. Ogata in the Marais not only does fantastic food but has beautiful homewares and a gallery.
Where I holiday with my family
We love to dance between places that are familiar and then unfamiliar. We chop and change. Sometimes we feel we need total relaxation and need the comfort of a place we have been frequently like Amalfi, or Provence or Camargue, where Felix and I got married. It’s a weird and wonderful area, a melting pot of French and Spanish gypsy culture.
And other times, we want to go somewhere inspiring, challenging and untrodden. While we are living in Paris, we are wanting to make the most of the proximity to so many different countries. I think it’s so important that children experience this diversity of place and culture at a young age so we are going to try to do as much travel as we can. The next place on our hit list is Majorca, then Portugal.
It’s all about the streets and the art
The architecture in Paris has so many different eras and layers. Behind all the grand doors on the streets are secret courtyards and secret buildings. I love to walk past and catch the glimpses of what lies beyond when a grand door is opened. Then there are the galleries and I have a few that I recommend: the Musée Rodin, Musée Bourdelle, L’Atelier Brancusi and Ogata.
My favourite hotel
La Colombe d’Or in Saint-Paul de Vence, France. You can sleep, dine and swim under works by Picasso, Matisse, and Calder in addition to many other artists who sought the honeyed light of Provence for inspiration. It’s a true creative escape, you feel like part of a history book just being there.
Packing tips
I travel so lightly these days, especially when going away without children. I always pack an oversized Aje blazer, longline black knit dress, which is great for travelling but also for dressing up or down. Boots, notebook, EarPods. My notebook is especially key because I find travel forces you to look at everything with fresh eyes. This continual shift in perspective helps me when designing.
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