Fashion designers turn to secondhand shops for inspiration

Paris

IT is a humdrum secondhand clothing store in one of the most down-at-heel districts of the French capital. But for designer Francisco Terra and other rising stars of the Paris catwalk, the shop stuffed with shirts and skirts that sell for the price of a coffee is "a temple of fashion research".

Mr Terra loves the place so much he held his Paris fashion week show in the store, the flagship "friperie" of the Guerrisol chain. "It is not just people who don't have much money who shop here but all the stylists of the big labels who come to do their homework," the creator behind the Neith Nyer label said.