Black Paris Profiles™ : Patricia Laplante-Collins

Patricia Laplante-Collins is the undisputed doyenne of the Paris salon scene. She once spent a lot of energy working as a volunteer in American organizations and helping them organize fundraising events, but then created a vision for her own events. She began with evenings focused on Paris’ ethnic communities and moved on to black literary events more than sixteen (16) years ago. Now, with her Paris Soirées, she focuses on gathering Paris expats, English-speaking French, and visitors of all ages to the city for eclectic evenings filled with food, camaraderie, information sharing, and entertainment. The soirées are now into their 13th year. Patricia calls them “My teenager.”

Patricia Laplante-Collins (center)
and the Yale Red Hot and Blue Singers
Photo courtesy of Patricia Laplante-Collins

Patricia’s primary goal is to organize events where people come to socialize, have fun, and “learn something too, in a light and fun way.” She has hosted soirées in various forms for several years and loves interacting with her guests, saying that she doesn’t mind sharing her international Paris lifestyle with them once a week. These invitees consist of “part time and full time global expats, our French friends and others passing through interested in meeting and/or interacting with us.” Patricia has observed that lots of friendships and relationships are formed through encounters at her evenings, and that a number of romances and marriages spring from them as well. She plans to offer more Paris dating-, sex-, and relationship-oriented themes for future events.

For want of a better term, Patricia refers to the activity at her salons as social connecting. She says that if you have recently moved to Paris, visiting the salon is a good way to get off to a fast start socially. It is a good way to participate in the Paris expat lifestyle.

Paris Soirées is a known and respected entity, as is Patricia. The diversity of her guests and the wide variety of presentation topics (all in English) and musical performances at the soirées are practically legendary. Themes include Paris history, chansons françaises (French songs), old Paris, the Paris aura, the making of certain French and American films (director Bob Swaim spoke about La Balance; Hollywood film executive Judith Merians talked about The King’s Speech), and expat life in the 20s. Patricia finds that her audience is especially responsive to these themes, as well as to themes about sex, love, and dating in Paris.

Patricia’s personal favorite theme is “Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack in Las Vegas,” which consists of the autobiographical reminiscences of a casino boss in Las Vegas named Ed Walters. Every year, she invites Walters to regale her guests with “endless stories of famous personalities such as Joey Bishop, Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra himself, Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, JFK and many others that Ed met or worked with as a very young man.” He always has new stories about these great personalities and Patricia finds them to be “a great treat.”

The Christmas holidays are a good time to attend a Paris Soirée. For the Christmas soirée, participants are frequently visitors to Paris, as local residents are occupied with their families. (The Christmas 2011 event was held at a restaurant, where guests feasted on North Indian cuisine and traditional pumpkin pie baked by Patricia herself!) In contrast, there are always lots of French people at the New Year’s soirées. Overall, attendees will find a basic combination of expatriates from all over the world, French people, and visitors at soirées throughout the year.

One of the draws for Paris Soirées is the dinner that Patricia provides. She began offering a meal at these evenings around the year 2000. At this time, her boyfriend was very good at cooking and he prepared everything. Because he was Eurasian, the food served was often a mix of Asian and European cuisines. Patricia enjoys cooking as well, and now prepares the meals herself. She favors dishes that originate from places that she has lived, so her guests often dine on U.S. southern, Italian, and French cuisines. She also serves a lot of fusion cuisine.

Patricia preparing dinner
Photo courtesy of Patricia Laplante-Collins

Occasionally, Patricia will hold a soirée in a restaurant. At one point in the history of her soirées, she held them on the Daphne, a péniche (river barge) moored across from Notre-Dame Cathedral in the Seine. But she likes the feeling of holding them at her apartment – “chez moi” – best, saying that people can feel more relaxed, move around, and mingle better there. Though the péniche offered the most interesting atmosphere, and restaurants in general are easier to manage, they are expensive options for her evenings. Soirées at Patricia’s place are very labor intensive for her, but it is easier for her to conjure up the casual, yet “worldly” ambiance for which she has become famous.

A few years ago, Patricia opened her home to her black Labrador retriever, Eve (pronounced like the first syllable in the name “Evan”). She says that words cannot express how much she loves Eve, noting that life would be empty without her ever-faithful canine companion. Patricia gets a lot of attention, particularly from men, when she and Eve are “out and about” in the city. She says that Eve is a great conversation starter and describes her as a “great and very intelligent lady.” She says that Eve is the perfect dog.

Eve
Photo courtesy of Patricia Laplante-Collins

Patricia is originally from Atlanta, Georgia. She attended Spelman College and is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College. When I asked her to talk about her time in Paris and what the city means to her, she had a lot to say about the 28 years that she has lived here. She arrived on August 1, 1983, enrolled in the University of Paris as a graduate student after a long stint in Florence during college and shorter stretches of time in New York, Stockholm and other places, and began leading a student’s life. Comparing these times with more recent times, she says:

I was always meeting people and going to cafes, parties and having love affairs. Those were happy days. Perhaps because life is harder now, Paris seems harder and less poetic now. It seems to me that it was dreamier then than it is now. Early on, it seemed very exciting to me because there was always something new coming – new friends, working papers, a new romance – many future possibilities.

It’s not that Paris has changed that much, but I’m not hanging around in cafes anymore and have a more adult, serious, and harder life.

What’s still great about Paris is its originality. It’s completely original and I feel that it is the one unique place to be. Everyplace else is second – by a great margin. It’s incomparable! There is no other place to be. There isn’t even a number two, really. Paris stands alone.

For many years, Patricia’s favorite area of Paris was Ile Saint-Louis because of its “total romantic feeling and the feeling of being out of time.” Now, she prefers the boulevard Saint-Germain area of the 5th arrondissement. She says that the 5th is a great arrondissement – it’s “historical, young, and fun with the best that Paris has to offer. It’s what people dream that Paris is like.” She notes that Paris is very expensive, and says that as in all big cities, it can be difficult to meet people unless you are aware of opportunities such as her soirées.

Patricia says that she dislikes being in a totally French environment, where she always feels foreign and is bored to death. She prefers a mixed, international environment, which is exactly what she provides with her soirées.

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