23) High fashion in Argentat

Argentat, on the upper Dordogne

Although we had already more or less decided to buy La Borde Neuve in Cezac, we had an email from an agent in Argentat enclosing some very tempting sounding houses.  Argentat is a couple of hours drive from where we are staying, so we decide to go.  By way of a sort of inverted snobbism, we had always said we would not buy in the Dordogne because it is so fashionable with the Brits.  The area round Argentat, though, is in the Correze, and very different from what most people think of as the "Dordogne" (or so we thought from our first visit there).

It is very different, as our delightful agent was only too willing to explain, as he drove us (rather distractedly)  round vertiginous hairpin bends, high above the spectacular sheer drops down into the valley below.

It rains quite a lot, and in the winter a thick mist hangs over the river for most of the day, making it cold and dank.  Above the river, up on the hills, it tends to be cold and often windy.  During the summer, though, it is stiflingly hot in the river valley, with high humidity making it seems even hotter than it actually is, and particularly uncomfortable.  Argentat, we were ,told has an indigenous population of only about a thousand, but this swells to twenty thousand in the summer when the tourists arrive.  During the winter everything closes and the place is closed and dead.  As a consequence, the agent told us, everyone looks forward to the time when the tourists start to arrive and the place starts to come alive once again.  He went on to say, though, that this feeling only lasts for a week or so, before everyone gets thoroughly fed up with the tourists; there is nowhere to park, all the prices go up, and you can’t get into any of the restaurants.

A fascinating piece of history we saw near Argentat

If we had the benefit of this somewhat unusually honest and candid sales pitch before we made the journey over, we probably wouldn’t have bothered.  We did see a couple of fascinating houses (including this one above), but we felt this probably was not the area for us after all.

2011 Spring fashions in Argentat

As can be seen from the picture at the top of this post, Argentat sits in a beautiful position straddling  the river, with tasteful, fashionable houses making its banks look picturesque and inviting for the wealthy and discerning (or, at any rate those who unaware of the downsides re: fog, winter closures, humidity, tourists etc.).  As such you would expect to find the sort of shops to cater for the rich and famous, with the latest fashions arriving simultaneously with those on the streets of Paris.

What you actually find, though, is this.  Now I am no fashion guru (as I am sure Georgi would readily attest), but to my eyes this was not the epitome of high fashion I had expected to find in such a place.  What would Carla Bruni or Segolene Royal, chancing upon this item, so delicately displayed between a drainpipe and an ad’ for a speed dating soiree make of it?  Perhaps this is another opportunity?  We must go back in the summer to check out the potential punters.

Carla and Nicolas

Segolene Royal