Rive Gauche
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
La Rive Gauche (The Left Bank) is the southern bank of the river Seine in Paris. Here, the river flows roughly westwards, cutting the city into two: the Rive Droite (Right Bank), to the north and the Rive Gauche (Left Bank), to the south.
The Left Bank is one of the city's most romantic districts.[citation needed] This is the Paris of another era; the Paris of artists, writers and philosophers, including Pablo Picasso, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Henri Matisse, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and dozens of other members of the great artistic community at Montparnasse. Some of its famous streets are the Boulevard Saint-Germain, Boulevard Saint-Michel and the Rue de Rennes.
More than simply a geographical region, the Left Bank has become a name for a particular lifestyle, fashion or "look".[citation needed] In 1966, Yves Saint-Laurent launched a ready-to-wear line by the name Rive Gauche. The collection was an attempt to democratize fashion, introducing elements of garments of the lower classes into high fashion.[citation needed]
The Latin Quarter is a Left Bank area in the 5th arrondissement, so named because originally Latin was widely spoken by students in the vicinity of the University of Paris.
