We had a couple of reasons for visiting Romans. It is close to a site called the Palais Ideal du Facteur Cheval (the Ideal Palace of the Postman Cheval). It is one of the most visited sites in the Drome Department and our friends had recommended it. Basically, between 1879 and 1912 a rural French postman built a little palace by himself in his backyard and some surrounding yards that he bought. He used predominately local rocks found on his postal route and he had no architectural or artistic training. It is now a national monument in France.
It is kind of craptacular but you cannot help but admire the determination of the Facteur Cheval and his interest in architecture and the outside world, despite having only received a basic education and never having travelled very far. It seems he was inspired by the magazines he peeked at whilst delivering them.
He also engraved lots of little philosophical statements into the building. He was clearly someone who thought about the world and his place in it.
Next, we discovered that Romans was once the centre of French shoe making and it has the most wonderful shoe museum.
It starts with a well explained description of the process
of shoe making, including displays of tools and machinery. There were also some fine examples of locally made shoes in this first room.
Then it presents collections of historical shoes from around the World. The French collection is the most extensive but there are significant collections from many countries.
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| Before the shoes, there was a room of art with shoe themes. I particularly liked this painting which tells the story of a young cobbler who is poor because the shoemaking guild restricts him to low paying repair work. Consequently he is depressed and neglecting his family, and his mother in law is telling him so! |
We were also lucky to see an exhibition of shoes designed by Jean-Paul Gautier for Stephane Kelian, who comes from Romans and created a luxury shoe brand. He spotted JPG’s talent when he was still very young and gave him free rein to design shoes that would be sold in his stores.
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| The JPG and Kelian exhibition |
Finally, the museum follows the evolution of shoe styles during the 20th and 21st centuries.
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| An ad for espadrilles. But really just an excuse to put up the gorgeous photo of Lauren Bacall |
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| Nike designed these boots for Mbappe, which include his name, the colours of his home town and its Department number |
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