Eight reformers and a coffee counter
Red & Red opened this year at 36 Boulevard Carl-Vogt, a few minutes from the university and the Musée d'ethnographie. Alexandra Andrei designed both sides of it: a studio equipped with eight Balanced Body reformers and half-cadillacs, where classes take eight people at most, and a coffee shop in its own right — Coffee Architects beans, Japanese matcha and food served all day.
The pre- and postnatal session
It runs on Wednesdays at 11:00, taught by Mélania. The pace is slow and the work technical: breath, posture, alignment and deep strengthening, without the abdominal exercises a standard reformer class is built on. Arms and legs get less attention than usual. Participants who are pregnant follow their own variations, pelvic floor included.
I have a diastasis, which rules out a good part of the abdominal work in an ordinary class. Here nothing needed adapting: the session runs through as designed, with no fear of doing harm, and with Mélania's cues for engaging the deep corset muscles and helping the diastasis to close.
The rest of the timetable
The studio describes its approach as contemporary Pilates. The other classes on the timetable are Genuine Pilates, Tower, Core, Strength & Flow, Back & Neck Pain Release and Nervous System Reset.
Lunch, and brunch on Sundays
At midday, avocado toast and a handful of dishes; through the day, cookies and cinnamon rolls; on Sundays, brunch. Beans are sold to take home. Open 7:10 to 18:00 on weekdays and 9:30 to 17:00 at weekends.
