Every design for Poissy

Saint Louis was born here. Louis IX and his son Philip III both came into the world at Poissy, one of the oldest royal towns of the Île-de-France, long before Saint-Germain-en-Laye took over its role. In the sixteenth century Catholics and Huguenots met here for the Colloquy of Poissy, a conference that settled nothing but left its name in the history books.

There is a different kind of pride in the town today. People from Poissy talk about the car plant that has built Simcas and Peugeots, about the Noyau de Poissy, an apricot-kernel liqueur made here since the early eighteenth century, about the Musée du Jouet and its rooms full of old games. The town sits on the left bank of the Seine in the curve of a meander, with the forest of Saint-Germain-en-Laye on one side and the river on the other. Ask anyone where they spent their free afternoons and the answer is often the riverbank, the forest edge or the Parc du Peuple de l'herbe.

And then there is the Villa Savoye, considered by many to be Le Corbusier's seminal work. Wearing Poissy means wearing the town that gave the world that.