Episode 22. I'll Always Have Paris: From Versailles to Bar Hemingway (and Kate Moss)

Solo Episode

Oct 15

A reflective journey back to the city that changed everything—Paris, friendship, and the power of living abroad.

In this solo episode, David shares his recent five-day trip to Paris, a city that has always felt like home. From reconnecting with lifelong friends to visiting the newly relocated Paris College of Art campus, David reflects on how his decision to move to Paris at age 23 completely transformed his life trajectory.

David moved to Paris for what was supposed to be a single school year and ended up staying nearly five years. What began as a year-long study abroad program at Parsons Paris became a transformative period that shaped his entire career path in design.

When David arrived for this visit in September, he was there for significant reasons: attending the annual Paris College of Art board meeting (where he serves as president) and inaugurating the school's stunning new campus in the 17th arrondissement near the Arc de Triomphe.

Through five days of exploration and reconnection, David revisits his favorite haunts—Bar Hemingway at the Ritz, charming bistros in Saint-Germain, and the iconic museums and department stores that shaped his design sensibility. Each moment serves as a reminder of why Paris will always be home.

Beyond the sightseeing, this episode explores the deeper lessons of living abroad: building empathy through cultural immersion, the challenge of navigating a foreign country's language and bureaucracy, and how international experience fundamentally shapes our worldview.

David also shares his philosophy on international living—that whether you live abroad for two weeks, two months, or twenty years, the experience of adapting to a new culture is invaluable. He advocates for this experience as essential education, regardless of where you're from.

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“Moving there was probably the one decision in my life, more than any other, that completely changed the course and trajectory of what I am doing now.”

— David Peck

Transcript

Welcome to this week's edition of Inside the Design Studio. I am so excited to be sharing my recent trip to Paris. It was something that was so hard to do in terms of life and timing. And I'm so glad that I did it. I'm so glad that I made the time. So if you're new here and you haven't been following me on Instagram, you can, at itsdavidpeck, I-T-S, David Peck. And I've been sharing reels from my trip, a lot of the highlights from every day. I have a couple more to do. And it's just been really fun to kind of relive my five days in Paris. If you know anything about me or if you're new, I'll give you a little brief recap.

Have you put them all? In one place, have you edited them down and refined them? And then have you tried them on for size? Have you tried to see if those are things that you want to live with for a year? Because remember, this is a word that should be sort of the guiding force, your guiding light for an entire year.
You're going to make decisions based on does this really align with the word that I've chosen or is it complete odds with it? So. From me to you in this new year, I am wishing you a year full of whatever intention it is that you put out there. For me, it's amplifying what matters most. And stay tuned, obviously, for more updates.
And there's so much more where this comes from. I'm going to be doing quarterly check-ins this year on my Word of the Year and let you know how it's going, the highs, the lows, the challenges. the things that I've run up against.
Because I think in addition to being something that I'm sharing with you now, there's a sense of accountability. And we're building this together. And I'm really excited to see where it leads. So stay tuned for more updates and keep designing a life that you love.
I lived in Paris for about four and a half years when I was 23, I moved there. And it was probably the one decision in my life, more than any other, that completely changed the course and trajectory of what I am doing now. I don't think, had I not made that decision, I would be where I am now. I mean, who's to know? There's so many theories about, you know, kind of ending up where you're supposed to be in. There's not one path, but I do know that my decision to move to Paris at the time felt kind of crazy and I really was only supposed to be there for one school year and I ended up staying, like I said, four and a half, almost five years.
I had moved to Paris after I finished a degree in classical cello and by the time I realized I didn't want to be a musician, it was just too late to not finish that degree. So I went ahead and finished the degree and in the meantime, I had been working at Ralph Lauren and I had started in sales but had transitioned into visual merchandising so I was doing in-store displays, was designing windows, it was super fun and so I had some friends who were really thoughtful at the time and just said why aren't you pursuing something with design? It's something you've been doing sort of as a hobby and even as a part-time job through college why aren't you doing this as a career and I was like, I don't know. So I put together a portfolio.
I took a year after I graduated from my music degree to put together a fine arts portfolio and through a lot of help from some people in my music school who connected to me and people in the art world who gave me the best advice. And so I applied and I knew that I wanted to study abroad and I had always wanted to live in Paris. In fact, I remember telling my mom when I was, I think 10 or 11, that I was going to live in Paris. I was going to have a flat in Paris. And she's like, no, you're not. I was like, yeah, I am. And I knew I could see it so clearly that that was something that I was supposed to do.
I moved there thinking I was going to be one year in Paris and then do the last two years of the degree. It was a second bachelor's in New York at Parsons in New York. Well, when I moved there, they changed the program so that you could actually stay in Paris and graduate. And so I decided to stay. It felt like home. When I landed, I have so many podcasts I could do about the crazy stories of what happened when I landed, but I will say it was not the easiest first week landing in a foreign country. But despite all of those adventures, it really felt like I was supposed to be there. I felt so comfortable and I didn't speak French when I moved there.
My school that I went to was all in English and so it wasn't required. And I ended up not being able to take a French class because of time constraints until my third year there. So it wasn't like I was a Francophile. It wasn't like I had all this language thing going in. It really just felt like home. I think one of the things that I was reminded of that this last time when I was here there in September is that it felt so much like home because I knew where to find everything. In fact, I had teachers who were French or who had married French people and they had been living in France for 20 years, whatever. And they assumed that I was French because I always knew where everything was.
What brought me to Paris this time actually is really interesting. So I graduated from Parsons Paris School of Art and Design and actually worked for them for many years after I graduated here in the States. I helped with facilitating study abroad programs and helping students develop portfolios and applying to the school. Well, several years after that, Parsons Paris ended up becoming Paris College of Art. And a few years after that, they asked me to join the board and I am now president of the board of Paris College of Art. And it's been so fun to be a part of the school in a different capacity.
This time was very special because we were moving, the school was moving to a brand new location in the 17th, very near the Arc de Triomphe, this beautiful building that has tons of light and it's just surrounded by gorgeous boulevards. It's just so lovely. Quintessential Paris. And this is where the new campus is, Paris College of Art in Paris. So we were going for our annual board meeting and then also to inaugurate the building. And so that was really such a wonderful excuse, I guess, to be there.
I knew that I didn't have a ton of time to be there, but I needed to be there for sure Friday, Saturday, and then we were supposed to have something on Sunday. At that time, and I was like, okay, how do I get the most out of this trip? So I ended up leaving on a Wednesday. So when you're flying from Houston to Paris, there's only one direct flight right now. It's with Air France. And so you fly out on an evening and you land the next morning. So it was a direct flight. There's other ways to get to Paris, but that was the direct one.
I flew and arrived on a Thursday morning and I was very fortunate to find a great Airbnb, a studio apartment, very near a soundful piece. Perfect location, especially if you're traveling alone or with just as a couple. It's a perfectly lovely, really nicely sized apartment. And it's so easy to get to. So I'll include a link to where I stayed. You can also see it in my Instagram reels on, at itsdavidpeck. Anyway, what I love, what I was very picky actually about where I wanted to stay, because obviously having lived in Paris, I knew that I would be walking a lot and I didn't want to be so far on the outskirts.
I really wanted to be central because I wanted to be able to see my friends and I wanted to be able to get to everything really quickly and I wanted to feel like I was living there again. And I will say that when I arrived on Thursday morning and I got on the RER, which is the suburban train from the airport and took it to San Michelle, which is the closest train stop to where my apartment was. It just felt like being at home again. Like I was just so easy to hop on the train, you know, I didn't do the Uber thing or the taxi or whatever. I was just me traveling like I always used to travel and like, you know, walking down the street with my suitcase and going and finding the flat. And it was just, it was great.
I kind of got overwhelmed with emotion a little bit just because it just felt so much like home. It felt like I had never left in many ways and obviously I have left and I haven't had a whole life since I lived in Paris. Paris has always just felt like home. And my French is obviously way more rusty now than it was when I worked there. But I felt very proud of myself the first day I conducted myself completely in French. It was just being very nice. It's funny because the next day I went to Versailles, which is a lot more touristy. And people wanted to speak to me in English. I was like, okay, well at least I had one day where I sort of felt a little French. I went to dinner at a restaurant very close to the apartment where I stayed called the Steam Bar. And it's this great little dim sum place that's in the heart of St. Germain and it's on this little tiny street. And it was just absolutely delicious. It was a perfect meal.
What I normally do when I land is that I need to have a bit of a rest, especially if a flight arrives at like, you know, eight or nine in the morning. I spent three hours actually in the customs line because it was just completely backed up. And so by the time I got to the flat around like one o'clock, I was just so tired. So I ended up taking a nap knowing that I was just going to go out for a little bit, enjoy the evening and then, you know, have a relatively reasonable night before it because I wanted to get up the next day and go to Versailles.
I will say that this trip, I typically, when I go to Paris or anywhere, I plan everything way ahead of time. And I had a general idea of what I wanted to do, but I really just didn't have the bandwidth with life and work to really plan much ahead of time. But I wasn't worried about it because when I lived there, I just would do things on the fly all the time. I decided actually very late on Thursday evening that the next day on Friday, I was going to go to Versailles. And it had been 20 years since I had been inside the chateau. I like, want to see the chateau. And they had a private tour of the apartments of the king. And so I booked that on Thursday night.
And then on Friday morning, I got on the RER again and headed out to Versailles. And it was so simple because the RER that goes to Versailles was just right next to the flat where I was staying. That made it super easy and accessible. And if you haven't seen the Chateau, I would highly recommend doing one of the private tours because you get a little bit more time to be in less crowded places. So it was Versailles itself was really crowded on the day that I went. And it's probably a pretty typical one on a Friday, obviously not the weekend. But like when I went through the main part of Chateau, like the Hall of Mirrors, it was completely packed.
So having the private tour was great. And they have several different ones. The Queen's Apartments were not up and running at the time that I went because they were being renovated. But I think as of now that you can get private tour of the Queen's Apartments. There's also just different areas where you can take private tours. I really wanted to do something that showed the theater at Versailles, the opera house. They did not have anything available while I was there, so I was not able to do that. But I just took my time wandering after the private tour, wandering around the chateau. When I lived there, the laundry, where they would basically do all the gardening and bring in all of the trees, the citrus trees for the winter had been closed. So it was actually open and I was able to walk through that.
And there was a really lovely surprise of exhibition, the tapestry that Dior had commissioned for one of their haute couture shows. And it was placed in the laundry. It was just massive. And it was so cool because I had seen that in Instagram. Well, actually on YouTube, I should say, I had watched how they made it and then being able to see it in person, close was pretty cool. And then I walked down, you know, Versailles is massive. If you've never been, it's just completely massive.
And I walked down to the Grand Trianon and the Petite Trianon, which are the little castles, the palaces outside of the big chateau at Versailles. And I think when I had lived there, if I'm remembering correctly, I don't think either one was fully opened at the time, or at least not when I went. And so for me, it was the first time that I actually got to see inside the Grand Trianon and the Petite Trianon. And then going further than that, I then walked to the hamlet that Marie Antoinette had constructed. It's like a little German farm village. And where she would go and pretend to live a simple life. So that was absolutely lovely. It just was great to walk and be outdoors and kind of be out and about and just enjoy how beautiful nature was at Versailles.
I think I ended up walking that day like over 25,000 steps, just like not even meaning to, it's just so easy and then that night I went to dinner with the rest of the board at Mallard, which is a lovely old French restaurant That's right near Garth Salazar, which was my train station when I lived in in Paris because where I lived actually I could take a train or the metro and if I took the train, you know to arrive at Garth Salazar and it was just so nice this French restaurant that had been in business since the 1860s. Gorgeous Art Nouveau room. It was really nice.
And then the highlight of the evening was really being able to go to my favorite place or bar, I should say, in the whole world, but most definitely in Paris called Bar Hemingway at the Ritz. And I always make it a point to meet my friends there. So my friends Danielle and Severine joined me at Bar Hemingway and What's lovely about it is it's so small, it's so intimate. You may have to stand in line for a little bit to wait to get in. But of course, while we were waiting in line, Kate Moss was there, which was kind of fun. She was kind of holding court with a whole bunch of people, I think, from Fashion Week. So we saw her going in and out. And then when we were finally into the bar, then we could see where she was sitting with her friends. It was fun.
And my favorite drink to order there is called a Clean and Dirty. It's the classic bar Hemingway cocktail, and it is no longer on the menu. So you have to ask for it especially because it's not on the menu. They have lots of other martinis, and I'm sure they're lovely. But my favorite is the Clean and Dirty because it is just the absolute best martini you will ever have.
I mean, this trip, I really tried to embrace living there like I did when I lived there. I wasn't, I guess I was seeing touristy things, I was going to museums, but I really wanted to feel like I lived there again. So I walked to as much as I could and I took the Metro to as much as I could because that's what made me feel the most like I was there or still living there, kind of tricked my brain. On Saturday, we had an entire day of a board meeting, which was super fun at the new campus. And it's really exciting to know what is going on and what we're building there.
And then that evening I had found a little restaurant called Jackpot. I don't know if the French call it Jackpot, but it's in the Moray. It was lovely. It was a little farm to table restaurant, really fresh, very, very small, intimate, very reasonably priced. And then we went to drinks at Bar BZU, which is sort of near Republic. And it just felt like a really lovely night. And so I feel like I can stay up in Paris so late when at home, I'm usually a grandpa and like want to be in bed by nine o'clock.
And then the next day was Sunday and I ended up wanting to go to the Museum of Decorative Arts, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs at the Louvre because they had this exhibition about the development and the history of the department store. And if you don't know, the department store really was the brainchild of France and Paris in particular. These grand kind of big department stores didn't really exist before and they created these, it was really with the rise of the industrial revolution that these kind of came into prominence in a place where the new middle class could go and shop and find wonderful things.
And so many of them exist to this day, Beaumarchais, Printemps, Galeries Lafayette, all of those department stores were really born in this, you know, of in the industrial revolution in the wake of the industrial revolution like the 18 mid-1800s and that was a beautiful exhibition and then I walked down closer to the Arc de Triomphe near the Champs-Elysees to see the Galerie d'Or which I have made a point to see every single time that I have been in Paris because there is always something new and I knew that this time that they would be showcasing some of the outfits and uniforms that were worn at the recent Paris Olympics.
So they had Celine Dion's dress, Lady Gaga's dress, the dress of the opera singer, her name is escaping me right now, who sang the French national anthem, as well as the choir. So it was really lovely to see that. And while the whole outline of the exhibit at Gallery Dior does remain the same. They change out the clothes constantly. And so what you end up seeing is a history of Dior, but then told through different clothes every single time you go. And then there's different rotating exhibitions. One of my favorites is that they have a place where they really celebrate the artisans who make the clothes and the accessories and things at Dior.
And so they will have, in this case, they were talking about the bar jacket, which is the famous Dior kind of like suit jacket that's very sculptural. And it was sort of the beginning of the new look collection in 1947. They had one of the premieres from the atelier there showcasing the work that went into making the bar jacket. And they had one sort of in various stages of construction. So you could see all of the care and the craftsmanship and the labor that went into it. And that was really fun for me because, you know, we make clothes every day and it's really nice to kind of see like, we're doing some of the same things that, you know, Dior is doing in terms of making and structuring clothes.
And just made me feel so happy. And then I had brunch at a place that which is funny because at the time I lived in Paris, I had no idea that they were all over the world at that point. But Le Pan Coûtidien, which is a Belgian company, if you live in New York or LA, you can go, I think even Chicago may have one at this point. But it's a lovely little place to have brunch, very fresh bread. And I always usually get something with the kind of half baked or hard boiled eggs with little like toast soldiers. It's so delicious. When we lived there, we would often go to Sunday brunch there with a group of friends and sit around a big farm table and have brunch. And it's just one of my favorite memories.
And then for the rest of the day, I kind of just spent my time wandering around Paris and walking around the Seine, just enjoying being outside, really kind of strolling through Paris and then ended up at my friend Danielle's house for dinner. Just very simple and it just was so great because it was not big and fancy. It was just simple and we had cheese and wine and bread and nothing crazy but just a really good time with friends and it was so much reminiscent of living there and being, I don't know, just living in Paris and that's really what I wanted from this trip was to get that feeling back because I missed it so much.
And then on Monday, I had just the best time because my friend Christine, who now lives in Lille, we actually met when we were both students at Parsons Paris. And then she has lived all over the world since then. After graduation, she moved to Shanghai. So I've seen her in Shanghai. And then she moved to San Francisco. And then she's actually been to visit me here in Houston when they were living in San Francisco because she had some family here in Houston, so she came with her mom. She has now moved back to Europe and is living in Lille, which is about an hour-ish train ride northeast of Paris, about on the border of Belgium.
And she lives there with her husband and two little boys. And she came in for the day to spend time with me. And so we actually worked on a very fun project, which I will be debuting on Instagram really very soon. I can't wait for you to see it. If you're listening to this after the fact, you'll have to go back and check out the Halloween post and tell me what you think. She helped me film that. And we just spent time all around Paris, kind of just like visiting some of our old favorite places and seeing some of her old friends.
We actually went to go see an ex-boyfriend of hers at the Vacheron watch company at Place Vendôme where he worked. And then we had dinner at Chartier, which is a very old French tradition, like a bouillon restaurant, which is they were based, the bouillon restaurants were originally intended for kind of the new working class to be able to go and have a really lovely meal at a not so unaffordable price because, you know, rest like proper restaurants were sort of a little far removed. And so we went to Chartier and it was great.
And we ended up sitting next to a couple from Belgium and they were visiting Paris for the day. And so we talked to them about all kinds of things. They were very curious about the American political process and the election. And that's a whole nother conversation. And it was great because they were speaking mostly in French and they were very polite and said a few things in English and I did my best to keep up in French and obviously Christine is fluent. So it was just great to, you know, you're kind of forced into these situations with people that you don't know.
And then we walked from there and we went to Harry's Bar, which is another famous bar in Paris where Hemingway was supposed to have been. And that was great. It was just a fun atmosphere. I still prefer Bar Hemingway. And then we ended up having drinks at a little tiny Italian restaurant near Palais Royale on the way back home.
And then the next day I had to leave and I was so sad to leave because the thing about Paris is, the weather was sort of, it wasn't sunny. It was kind of gray and cloudy and a little bit moody and I loved it. It was absolutely lovely. And I was able to wear layers every day, which if you live in Houston, you know, lately, especially, we have not been able to wear layers, which has been way too hot. And you just enjoy being there and feeling like it felt to live there again, because it's been a minute and I miss it so much.
I miss the idea of being able to walk to the local bakery or walk to a cafe to have a drink or, you know, it's just so simple, obviously, you know, as it went, if you're visiting there and you have friends there, they're going to make an effort to see you. And it's harder when you live in the same city and you don't often meet up with friends as easily as, you know, when they're visiting and you make a point to do it. But just how easy it is of a city to live in Paris is relatively small compared to cities like New York or London. It's very easy to navigate. You can walk almost everywhere.
And like I said, moving there was probably the decision that transformed my life the most. Everything that I've done since then has basically been informed by that decision in one way, shape, form. And I am so glad that it gave me a new perspective on the world. It gave me a perspective on even being an American. I think that I didn't appreciate America as much when, before I moved there, and then moving there, I could appreciate America in a whole new way.
You know, like, I, see people are like, don't, you know, wouldn't you rather live in America? Wouldn't you rather live in France? And I think with anything, it's sort of a matter of choosing your heart. No matter where you live, there are gonna be parts of it that are hard. There are gonna be parts that are tricky to navigate. if you're living in Paris, maybe it's the language, maybe it's bureaucracy, maybe it's who knows what. In America, it could be just feeling like there's maybe a little bit of a lack of mobility if you're not in a major city like New York, where you're having to drive everywhere, or maybe the sense of history.
I know that for me, history is so important. And so one of the things that I really recommend to everybody, and it's something that I'm especially keen on for my kids, is that everyone should have an experience of living abroad. Whether it's two weeks, two months, two years, 20 years, whatever it is that you can handle, have an experience where you go and live in another culture. And that doesn't mean that you hate where you're from or you never want to go back or you're trying to run away to something.
It really is go and live somewhere where you feel uncomfortable for a while, where the other people have their ways sort of set and you need to adapt to them. Having that skill is so, so incredibly important. It has informed me in so many ways. It's given me more empathy. It has shaped me so much in the way I view the world and understanding that we can have completely different viewpoints and come from completely different backgrounds and we don't have to agree and we can both be right. And the way we look at the world is so much a product of how we are raised in our environment.
And I think I would recommend the same thing for people who are living in Europe is go and they do this way more often than Americans, I'm afraid, is go somewhere else and have an experience of living in another country. It's so incredibly important to do. And if you have questions about, you know, living abroad or wondering what to do or how to do it or, you know, what were the hardest parts about it, I'm happy to talk about it. I could talk about living in Paris all day, every day. It's one of my favorite subjects.
I wanted to just give you a brief overview of my trip because it meant so much for me to be able to go. And I'm really thankful for my family for kind of like stepping in and letting me be able to take this trip because it's not easy, especially when you have kids and taking care of them. And I'm so grateful to have that time. It makes me want to do it more. And if you want to hear more podcasts about my time in Paris and stories, I would be happy to share them. Just let me know, send me a note, a DM.
Tell me if you like it. Like and share this podcast if you have friends who are interested in Paris or being abroad or planning to go abroad. Just let me know and I'd be happy to point you in the right direction. I know lots of wonderful people there who would be glad to make you welcome.
And the one thing I should mention is that the more we are different, the more we are the same. So my friends Danielle and her husband Paul, they co-own a coffee shop and bike tour company called Le Peloton, which they named way before Peloton Bikes here in the States. And they have a coffee shop there. And it's nice to kind of share war stories about small business and the struggles of small business. They had the Olympics, and actually the Olympics made it in many ways harder for them because they were a little bit isolated where they were from the main action. And so that made this a tricky year. And how do you navigate that as a small business owner and how it varies from country to country?
It's just the conversations are just so fascinating. So there are many more episodes to be had about living abroad, studying abroad, being abroad, having friends who are abroad. So if you're interested, let me know. And thank you so much for joining me today inside the Design Studio.

David takes us back to Paris, the city that transformed his life.

From attending the Paris College of Art board meeting to reconnecting with lifelong friends, hear why living abroad matters.

Key takeaways

Moving to Paris at age 23 was transformative, fundamentally changing David's career trajectory from classical music to design.
Living abroad for an extended period provides invaluable skills in empathy, cultural adaptation, and understanding diverse perspectives.
A city's walkability, public transportation, and cultural accessibility create a sense of ease and belonging that distinguishes great cities.
The importance of immersive travel: walking the streets, taking public transit, and reconnecting with friends feels authentic, not touristy.
International experience shapes how you view your own country and culture, creating new appreciation and understanding.
Whether abroad for two weeks or twenty years, the experience of living in another culture is essential education.
Craftsmanship and attention to detail in design (like Dior's bar jacket) is a universal language that transcends borders.
Reuniting with long-distance friends and maintaining connections across continents enriches life in unexpected ways.