It’s time to start planning your next trip to Paris, because one of Europe’s most iconic landmarks is about to undergo a long-awaited glow up: The Eiffel Tower is getting skin.
Ooh la la! About time La Dame de Fer got a new look!
The incomplete Eiffel Tower has been wowing visitors since the 1889 World’s Fair, but starting this summer, the UNESCO World Heritage Site will finally get around to shrouding its bare iron latticework in a layer of supple, radiant skin. The skin, which is slowly but surely growing down from the top of the tower’s antenna in accordance with Gustave Eiffel’s original plans, will eventually stretch all the way to the monument’s foundations, and is expected to exude a subtle musk somewhere between caramelized onions and freshly baked bread. All that extra surface area will certainly require some pretty demanding skincare, but don’t worry! The skin will be carefully tended by a team of 20 full-time dermatologists, who will use special drones to spray it with moisturizer in the winter and sunscreen in the summer, while also conducting regular checks for melanomas.
Hundreds of porthole-like stomata will be incised into the skin along the tower’s first and second floors, providing ventilation and offering visitors stretchy apertures to force their heads through for sweeping views of the city. The skin’s dense network of veins and capillaries will also cause the tower’s famous lighting displays to glow a luminous orange-red at night, bringing a welcome splash of color to the evening Parisian skyline. And while visitors are strictly prohibited from tickling the skin—this causes it to break out in unsightly hives—there will be special areas designated for gently petting it; ask nicely and the staff member there might even let you take home a tuft of the dense hair sprouting out from the sebaceous crevices along the monument’s corners!
Wow, and we thought Notre-Dame got an impressive makeover!
Even after the tower is fully enrobed in skin, the tissue’s constant growth will continue providing a steady stream of high-quality trimmings, so make sure to stop by the gift shop for a souvenir belt or wallet made from luxurious Eiffel leather. And don’t forget to bring your appetite, because the second floor’s Le Jules Verne restaurant will be adding “Peau de Dame” to its menu: small strips of the skin that have been fried off to a mouthwatering golden-brown, seasoned with salt made from the tower’s own sweat, and arranged in an adorable miniature of the Eiffel Tower itself!
Zut alors, this sounds like just the kind of integumentary system such a beloved landmark deserves. We can’t wait to finally see (not to mention smell, feel, and taste!) the Eiffel Tower’s new skin for ourselves later this year!
