Back in the early 1980s, when I was a model in Paris, there were a few great discotheques we liked to hit: Le Palace, L’Apocalypse, Régine’s, Castel’s. They were chic and shiny, filled with colognedrenched playboys and bejeweled jetsetters grooving to Michael Jackson, Rick James, and Kool & the Gang. But on the other side of town, in the rundown neighborhood of Les Halles, there was this multistory former public bathhouse from the 19th century that a then-unknown French interior designer named Philippe Starck had turned into a dance club called Les Bains Douches.
We’d arrive around 11, dolled up in our sexiest Alaïa, and cruise past the fierce gatekeeper for dinner upstairs, where we’d find ourselves next to regulars such as Roman Polanski, Yves Saint Laurent, or Mick Jagger…
