Beauty and cancer: two words rarely seen together. Yet, an astonishing boutique near the Bastille, L’Embellie, reconciles these two concepts. The shop aims at embellishing the life of women suffering from cancer by providing them with both elegant and practical items. “Because an ill woman is not just ill…” announces the few words written on the shop window.

“I wanted to create the place I dreamed of when I was ill, with all the details which can make a sick person’s life not only easier but also prettier and more comforting,” explains Anne Matalon, herself a cancer survivor who founded L’Embellie a few months ago. “Sick women need to enjoy their everyday life again—shopping, taking care of their body and skin. I’ve never enjoyed being elegant as much as when I was ill.”

Along with exquisite broaches, necklaces, bracelets, scarves and hats, women can find all the accessories they need during their stay at the hospital: mini-radio, mini-Thermos flask, personal mini-fan, small patience games, attractive toilet bags and many original note-books. The shop also presents wigs with fashionable haircuts, mammary prostheses, and clothing adaptable to the constraints of cancer—that is to say, made of organic material, easy to slip into and loose enough not to press scars. To help women fight nausea, hair loss, or exhaustion, Ms. Matalon offers yoga classes, counselling (sometimes with psychotherapists), and make-up sessions that use cosmetics for sensitive skin and teach tricks to hide traces of the disease or to skilfully delineate eyebrows lost from chemotherapy. Shoppers can share a cup of tea, mutual understanding and bits of advice in one of the tearoom’s unbelievably pink-red and lilac armchairs.

L’Embellie, 29 Boulevard Henri IV, 75004 Paris. Metro : Bastille. Tel : 01 42 74 36 33
Open : Tuesday to Saturday, 11am to 7pm. www.embellieboutique.com