Every design for Bagnolet

Did you know Bagnolet's name goes back to a bath? In medieval times the place was called Balneolum, after an old bathing spot, and the town that grew out of it has spent the centuries since negotiating its edge with Paris.

Few suburbs have had their outline redrawn so often. When Paris grew in the nineteenth century it took a slice of Bagnolet and, at the same moment, handed it part of the dissolved commune of Charonne; a few years later more of its land went into the new commune of Les Lilas. Underneath it all lies gypsum, quarried through long underground galleries from the fifteenth century onwards, and on top runs the motorway that begins at the Porte de Bagnolet and splits the town into two unequal parts. The Château de Bagnolet once stood here; the Hôtel de Ville came later, and the Métro now ends at Gallieni, on the town's doorstep. To the east the land rises towards the hills of Romainville, where the Fort de Romainville keeps watch.

If your Bagnolet is the climb from Gallieni up towards the plateau, wear it with the quiet pride of someone from just the other side of the périphérique.