The little boy is running home from the neighborhood boulangerie, his family’s daily baguette tucked under one arm. You can almost sense his motion, feel his excitement. It’s 1952, and you are in Paris with him. “Le petit Parisien” is only one of the stunning photographs in Merideth McGregor’s “Icons of French Photography” at Joie de Livres Gallery in Salisbury Wines. Selecting from works by six 20th-century masters of the camera, she has curated a show that seduces with its singular French locations, most in Paris, and very French sensibility, that unique and sometimes even forbidding combination of high style, elegance and design. Jacques-Henri Lartigue’s fame rested largely on his carefully composed yet spontaneous-feeling pictures of race cars, airplanes and fashionable Parisian women in pre-World War II France. A photo of a single grand prix car seems to speed left off the print, while a luggage-laden, open roadster meanders along a Mediterranean corniche, its driver in soft helmet cap with ear flaps. There is a stunning image of a woman in Biarritz — Renée, she’s called — with huge dark eyes and wearing an enormous afternoon hat. And then there is the beautiful Florette, eyes closed, supine with forearms and long-nailed hands above her head. Erotic yet unattainable. Among images from Edouard Boubat is the charming photograph of a young boy and girl in a Montmartre bar, their backs to the camera. His left arm is under her right, while her right hand rests on his derrière. (How early they learn in Montmartre.) Another is a gorgeous photo of the formal park at St. Cloud — the famous, long-destroyed chateau above the Seine beloved by Louis XVI and both Napoleons – with its allée of trees leading upward through a slight mist. Three Boubat images capture a still essence of Paris: moody, leafless trees surround an empty bandstand, a couple seems unmoving on a tandem bicycle, and a stunning picture of an apartment building facade combines a formal arrangement of open and shuttered windows. People look at each other or outward from the open windows, while mystery lies behind the shuttered ones. Willy Ronis, who shot the running boy with his bread in Paris, captures lyrical moments of city life. His photograph in Venice of the Fondamente Nuove, the seaside street along the city’s northeast border, is a masterpiece of geometrical composition. Robert Doisneau’s famous photograph of Pablo Picasso and his mistress Francoise Gilot from 1952, only a year before their breakup, places Gilot in the forefront seeming already detached from the artist, sitting calmly on a bed in the background. He would soon betray her and their two children. (She would later become an appreciated painter herself and, rather surprisingly, the wife of Jonas Salk.) Doisneau’s “La Derniere Valse” freezes a man and woman dancing alone in front of a bar presumably late at night. Her big skirt is a ruffled swirl. His image of a fox terrier looking at us while its owner looks away at an artist painting near a bridge over the Seine is a wonder of composition and narrative. Another picture of a kissing couple, a gendarme, a mother and her son is amusing and surreal. Finally there is a wonderful shot from Sabine Weiss: a broom seller, laden with brushes and brooms of all sizes, makes his way through a dark arcade toward the light of intersecting streets. You can almost hear the sounds of his brushes rubbing each other and his voice calling for business from concierges and housewives. “Icons of French Photography” continues at Joie de Livres Gallery in Salisbury Wines, 19 Main St., through the end of the year. Hours are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Saturday. Call 860-248-0530 for information or go to www.joiedelivres.com
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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