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Jessica Deutsch, the founder of Arts to Life, a plugged-in travel company, talks about incredible behind-the-scenes access in Italy and France.

Can you talk about the highlights of the fashion-focused trip you organized to Italy? The idea was to show the evolution of the fashion industry and it was fantastic. In Milan, we were invited for cocktails at Etro; we spent an entire day at the house of the Missoni family, where we had full access to their home and were taken on a tour of the factory; and we had a private evening at Armani, where the women in the group were given personalized style tips. We also visited several up-and-coming young designers and one of them gave our group a complete make-over, suggesting clothes that were totally different from what people were wearing when they arrived. Plus, we had a private tours of the Ratti Foundation, the world’s largest textile collection. In Florence, we visited private weavers of damask fabrics and brocades (so essential to Florentine fashion), saw the work of prominent jewelry designer Orlando Orlandini and dropped by private jewelry workshops that are generally unknown to the public. The culmination of our trip was a drive to Siena where we dined with Contessa Pannocchieschi d’ Elci, who hails from a noble family and whose collection of antiques, porcelain, tapestries and paintings shows impeccable taste.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Deutsch is planning a repeat of this trip, with some modification, for the fall of 2009. It sold out almost immediately the first time she arranged it, so if you’re intrigued by going behind the fashionable scenes in Italy, register early.

Do you have another favorite trips? I’ve organized many programs on 18th-century Paris, but I loved planning one that focused on the influence and impact of Versailles on Americans living in Paris. I am not at liberty to reveal the names of the people who opened their apartments to my group—both Americans and French aristocrats—but the homes we saw were remarkable. We saw family collections going back two hundred years, including some famous paintings. We also had the rare opportunity of going behind the scenes at the Sèvres porcelain factory, which is almost never allowed, and visiting the archives at the Hotel Soubise, where we saw the books from which Marie Antoinette chose her dresses. They had tiny strips of fabric on one side of the page and brief descriptions of the gown on the other. You can still see the pinpricks where she made her choices. Another highlight was a day at Versailles and the Petit Trianon, where we were able to the Marie Antoinette’s small private chambers, as well as the hidden passageways between them. At dinner we were joined by the heads of Versailles and Sèvres.