I love reading about your fashion experiences in Paris, jazzd. I'm hoping to be able to buy a few things for myself this trip. We'll see. I love the Marais. Don't know if you went there but my fave little corner of the Marais is the Place du Marché Ste-Catherine. There's a beautiful designer wedding gowns & such place called Suzanne Ermann.
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/tp/fa9bd/

Yes, the shops there seem to open late and close early with an hour or so lunch in between.
Some exceptions are the department stores that close late on Thursdays.
We missed Samaritane (?) twice - it was just not meant to be.

Yes, we tried to get the 12% tax back since we have quite a bit of purchases but we did not realise that you had to
SHOW your goodies to them - not just have papers in all your name or credit card.
Well, we checked our luggage in when the
VAT office told us to show them a boarding pass. How do they expect us to get a boarding pass without checking in our luggage ? I think they just want to make it less easy to give you money back.

And another thing funny about the French people (OK good funny, alright... French people out there?) the flight coming into JFK was plain scary. We were on an Air France flight operated by Delta.
I have flown many times overseas and a gazillion times domestically and never witnessed this. It was an EXTREMELY bumpy flight and scary flight and everyone had to put the belts on and the attendants had this worried look and hurried to the back of the plane to take their seats.
I mean the plane dropped altitude like some Disney E ticket ride (I don't do rides)
BUT everyone was laughing and cracking jokes each time the plane took a dip.
Whooo oo Oh, Oh, Ha Ha - giggle giggle... What is going on ... Death by air plane should mean the same in any country, NO? May I say many had wine in hand ? We were white as hell but around us was a French speaking thrill ride going on... It was very very strange. I am NOT even exaggerating.