There's a few secondhand clothes stores in Paris, but always immaculately selected, expensive and fashionable. Guerrisol however is a huge, dirt cheap jumble sale. Stock seems to rotate daily in each of their four stores, and prices fluctuate on the hour. Sifting through endless rails of synthetic jackets at €3 can suddenly reveal a hidden gem.
I go to the flea market in St Ouen to look for old cameras and expired film. But it’s also a great place to see all the different walks of life from Paris’ extreme social scene. At the top of the ladder you’ve got the aristo-bourgeois crowd acquiring Louis XV furniture at the indoor antiques markets; the thirty-something bobo set paying way over the odds for mid-century designer chairs and formica tables; the banlieusards from the Neuf Trois getting kitted out with the latest sneakers and hoodies along the rue des Rosières; then at the very bottom you’ve got people trying to scratch a living selling second hand food at the Carré des biffes at Porte Montmartre. It’s an eye opener for sure.