French Fashion Insider Agnès Combes Bernageau Shows Us Around Her Modern House Boat In Paris - The Gloss Magazine

French Fashion Insider Agnès Combes Bernageau Shows Us Around Her Modern House Boat In Paris

Why French fashion insider Agnès Combes Bernageau swapped her conventional Parisian lifestyle for life on a barge …

As an executive at a renowned French luxury fashion brand, Agnès Combes Bernageau might be expected to live in one of Paris’s more sought-after quartiers – Montmartre perhaps, or Le Marais – but that’s not her style. “It was time for a change. I moved from my cosy flat to my beloved boat on a gut feeling. One of my best life choices ever! I knew it would bring some changes, but didn’t expect my life to blossom in such a way. A boat gives space for that.

The barge Le Cid is moored on a section of the River Seine, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, near Pont Alexandre III and the Eiffel Tower.

Agnès prepares lunch in her openplan kitchen.

“I love to learn, and you do a lot of learning on boats – from moorings to all the technical stuff. I gained muscle strength and bruises and pride. And when an orphaned student offered to help out in the wheelhouse for free, I gained an adopted son.” In the process Agnès lost her marriage. “It didn’t survive the community life, the harbour spirit and a new addition to the family. We were growing in opposite directions after ten years on the same path.”

Employing her fashion professional’s eye, Agnès has created a chic but restrained interior design throughout the barge.

And what do her neighbours make of her glamorous working life? “At first, I didn’t talk about my job with them,” Agnès explains. But it is the paradox of her water-borne life that holds the most appeal. “That I can be tightening a mooring line early in the morning, then grabbing my professional clothes and heading into the office, is fascinating for some people,” she adds. If there is a cliché emerging of an elegant Parisian lady holding high heels in her hand, jumping off the boat for the day and returning in the evening to enjoy the sunset with a glass of champagne, it rings true. “You might just replace high heels with Doc Martens and champagne with spritz,” she says. “And don’t forget the river floods in winter – then you go into the office in waders. More paradox, more fun.”

Cool, clean lines mark out Le Cid’s interior which boasts more living space than many small Parisian flats.

From: Making Waves: Floating Homes and Life on the Water, by Portland Mitchell, is published by Thames & Hudson.

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