The flapper era never died in this Shanghai suburb, writes Clare Press.

Shanghai has a reputation as a city that is demolishing its links to the past as fast as it is spewing out products and pollution, but a short stay in the atmospheric French concession proves the opposite. Downtown, in the gorgeous grid of old streets lined with cool boutiques, bars and art deco buildings, Shanghai’s cool heritage is being celebrated. This is where the expat Euro party set lived it up in the 1930s, but anyone still calling that decade the city’s heyday clearly hasn’t flown in recently. The old playgrounds are fast being revamped and pulse with a new energy that makes Shanghai feel like a frontier town where anything can happen – and does.

Where to stay? Book into the Galleries Suites hotel that, since 2009, has occupied a cleverly renovated heritage listed art deco apartment block on the HengShan Road. It’s just a short walk to Taicang Road to browse hip homewares stores and fill up at Paul’s one of the best French patisseries outside Paris – warning: one raspberry tart is never enough. Walk it off shopping for clothes in the eclectic boutiques along Huai Hai Lu road.