The first time I visited Colette, the much-ballyhooed concept store on Rue St. Honore, my eyes, hungry for objets I’d never seen before, glazed eye over at the all-too-familiar. Nixon watches? Current/Elliott jeans? Tim Biskup tchotchkes? There was so much stuff from L.A., the city where I spend most of my time, that it could have been a Silver Lake boutique. OK, I’m exaggerating, but the store has an obvious crush on Los Angeles, and it’s not alone. In 2006, the Pompidou Center mounted a group show of L.A. contemporary artists and Galeries Lafayette, the same year, hosted “L.A. Now,” a run on Angeleno style. The latest love-fest will start this August, when Le Bon Marche opens “Paris – Los Angeles,” an exhibition of all things L.A.  

 What fashion and design objects typify L.A. right now? For Le Bon Marche, it’s 291 from Venice leggings, Bauer pottery, and a Kitson tank T-shirt covered with five-point stars. The City of Angels is also, according to Le Bon Marche, all about signs on sticks you wave from your car—not Lakers flags, but expressions such as “Are You Drunk?” and “You’re Cute.” I have never seen these communication tools used on the streets of L.A. but I understand why Le Bon Marche will include them in the show: there needed to be something representing car culture. (If the store wanted authenticity, it could have chosen a “My child is an honor student” bumper sticker. But the car signs have more pop appeal—and the idea of visuals trumping reality is so L.A.)

Last Tuesday Isabelle Picard, a rep from the store, threw a dinner party to announce the show, and to honor Liz Goldwyn (pictured standing, below), who is creating an art installation for it. “It’s not just a shopping experience, it’s an emotional experience,” Isabelle told me at the poolside soiree at Sunset Tower hotel on the fabled Sunset Strip. She was speaking of both the show and the store’s raison d’etre, and she wasn’t blowing smoke: Le Bon Marche, one of the world’s first department stores, became a concept boutique in 1990, following LVMH’s purchase of it. Though it is best known for housing La Grande Epicerie, the city’s most famous gourmet grocery store, Le Bon Marche is also a pioneer of melding art and fashion, with contemporary installations rotating through a skylighted space designed by Gustav Eiffel. You may have heard of him.

Liz Goldwyn, with Dita Von Teese at her side, said her contribution won’t feature clothing. “It’s not about fashion at all,” she said. Instead, some sort of palm trees will fill the store’s 10 display windows. The musician and music producer Money Mark is collaborating with Liz on a song to play inside and outside the store—a pop ditty reminiscent of the Beach Boys, he told me. Liz said that she hopes to capture the feeling of driving in L.A. with music blaring and palm trees swaying. Using her and Money Mark for the project is perhaps the most L.A. aspect of “Paris – Los Angeles.” As a filmmaker, jewelry designer, and writer, Liz enjoys the sort of hyphenated careers that the French often envy about Angelenos. It doesn’t hurt, of course, that’s she’s also descended from Hollywood royalty. As for Mark, his Japanese-Latino heritage is as quintessentially L.A. as his work with fellow Angeleno artists Beck, the Dust Brothers, and Banyan.