Paris-Based Printemps Arrives on Wall Street in Resplendent Fashion

It’s spacious, visually sumptuous, and filled with a total of 450 big brands, niche labels and brands arriving to New York City for the first time, as well as ample food and beverage options.

But don’t call Printemps on Wall Street a department store. Better yet, it’s a “hospitality project.”

At least that’s how executives from the Paris-based retailer prefer to characterize the new Printemps store, located at One Wall Street by Broadway. The official opening is March 21 with some preceding “soft opening” days and advertising.

Don’t expect a version of the 480,000-square-foot Printemps flagship on Boulevard Haussmann in Paris. Printemps on Wall Street is an original work, with 55,000 square feet, including 40,000 square feet for selling over two floors, and features distinct from other stores in New York City. Most striking is the landmarked Red Room, a soaring 33-foot tall Art Deco marvel with original 1920s Hildreth Meière red ombré and gold mosaic-covered walls and ceilings. The Red Room establishes an impressive, grand introduction to the store, and is gracefully merchandised with footwear on exquisite circular onyx tables.

Printemps New York will also be selling men’s and women’s ready-to-wear, casualwear, outerwear, vintage, active, accessories, beauty, wellness and gifts. Among the brands being carried at the debut are JW Anderson, Jacquemus, Jean Paul Gaultier, Manolo Blahnik, Aquazzura, Balenciaga, Nike, Acne Studios, Simone Rocha, Carven and Jil Sander.

There are also niche labels like Vautrait, Le Monde Bery, Corsi Design, Aeyde, Magda Butrym, Plan C and several brands Printemps is bringing to New York for the first time, including Joseph Duclos, Pinel & Pinel, Pascal Mathieu, Capulette, Maison Ernest and Taller Marmo.

F&B Front and Center

Compared to other retailers, Printemps New York devotes a much higher percentage of its space, about a third, to food and beverage. The culinary director is Gregory Gourdet, a two-time “Top Chef” finalist and three-time James Beard Award winner, who for the store’s Maison Passerelle restaurant, with its open kitchen, interprets “tried-and-true French favorites through a contemporary cultural lens” or a passerelle, which means bridge in French, between Parisian and New York cuisine. Gourdet has created four other F&B concepts for the store, including Café Jalu, an all-day casual café named after Printemps’ founders Jules and Augustine Jaluzot; Salon Vert, a classic Parisian-inspired raw bar; the Red Room Bar, and The Champagne Bar. There is also a French wine shop.

Printemps New York has a section dedicated to preserving and restoring clients’ cherished pieces, called Atelier & Repair; circular and vintage pieces are interwoven throughout the assortment. Then there’s the Sneaker Room, crowned by a ceiling-spanning LED screen that could project, for example, a marketing campaign, or a blue sky for a meditation session being held. It’s temporarily merchandised with Nike.

Also special is what’s lacking. The store is completely devoid of leased shops. The selling floors feel open, with flexible areas that can morph and enable the merchants to showcase different designers, artists and events, and change the presentation depending on what’s selling or not. A few spaces were crafted for brand takeovers, so for the opening, there’s a Jacquemus pop-up.

A Risky Expansion Move

Printemps’ management knows well that being situated in the financial district, a neighborhood not perceived as a destination for designer and luxury shopping, requires a distinct and compelling experience and offer. Luxury hasn’t exactly blossomed downtown. A Saks Fifth Avenue women’s store and separate men’s store, as well as Barneys New York, came and left, and 10 Corso Como came and left the South Street Seaport. However, in the past decade there’s been a modest buildup of luxury and designer stores with the openings of Tiffany & Co. and Hermès on Wall Street, and Elyse Walker and Thom Browne in TriBeCa. Also on the west side, Brookfield Place houses Gucci, Bottega Veneta, Louis Vuitton and Zegna.

“We come to the New York market with humility,” Jean-Marc Bellaiche, chief executive officer of Printemps, said in an interview. “We know it’s a difficult market. It’s crowded with stores, including strong department store players we respect a lot. It’s a demanding market. At the same time what we propose is very different from any other store. We’re not a department store. This is a destination where shopping meets food meets experiences meets culture and service. It’s French sophistication and curation meets American hospitality merged with a highly curated offer.”

But is Printemps New York a luxury store, through and through?

“It’s definitely a store that brings a lot of surprise,” Bellaiche said, responding to the question. “It’s a store that will carry some of the most luxurious brands and expensive products, but part of the offering is accessible. We have, for example, a lounge for gifting, coffee table books, candles and some of that will be quite accessible. We also are bringing for the first time in the U.S. our own brand, Saison 1865. It’s all made in Italy and other European countries with very good quality at accessible price points. It’s men’s and women’s ready-to-wear, shoes and accessories. It could be quite an interesting brand for Americans to discover.

“In food, we will have Maison Passerelle for very high-end fine dining and at the same time, we have Cafe Jeru, where we serve coffee and croissants for daily commuters or residents.” He draws a parallel to Printemps’ Paris flagship, where he said, “You can eat a crepe for 15 euros with a view on the Eiffel Tower and we have fine dining for 150 or 200 euros per person.”

“The world is so transactional, we wanted Printemps in New York to be decidedly less so,” said Laura Lendrum, Printemps America CEO. “It’s a place where you come for a cappuccino or a manicure, not necessarily to buy something. The store will have less product and more good product. We don’t want this to be a markdown experience. We are buying in a more strategic way, for a higher price sell-through.”

Even with that approach, Lendrum said, “We don’t expect a lower productivity.”

Realistic Expectations

The Printemps executives declined to disclose how much volume the store is expected to generate, or how much it cost to build. They have been working on the project for four years.

“We have a very reasonable business plan,” Bellaiche said. “We didn’t push it too much, because we know it’s a tough market and it might take some time for people to [adapt] new habits.”

While Printemps in France has many American clients, Americans in general, Bellaiche acknowledged, have little awareness of what the retailer is all about. “We know we need to build awareness,” he admitted. “We have a strong, 360-degree marketing plan with outdoor advertising in key areas, a lot of digital, and we will progressively build a nice [program] for CRM,” customer relationship management.

Unlike opening another store in France, where existing IT and logistics would be utilized, for New York, “We had to build everything from scratch, but at the same time, it was not so complex,” Bellaiche explained. “In a way, that can be an advantage because when you start from scratch, you go directly to the next generation of systems. Our point-of-sale system is state-of-the-art. The cameras we put in the store are better than the ones we have in Paris.” They monitor shopping traffic patterns and “cold and hot zones” in the store, the CEO noted.

In entering the U.S., as many foreign retailers fail as succeed. Printemps first came to the U.S. in 1984 with a licensed store opened on the outskirts of Denver. Three years later, it closed. Other foreign retailers that entered the U.S. and eventually shut down include Galeries Lafayette, Takashimaya, Topshop, Tesco, Carrefour and Joe Fresh.

Manhattan’s financial district quiets down on weekends, which for department stores are often bigger volume days than weekdays, and many office workers still work from home a few days a week, although most financial firms in the neighborhood have returned to full office work. In addition, the residential population and tourism downtown are growing, so Printemps expects locals — including those living in the 500 apartments in the building housing the store — commuters, and visitors from out of town to take advantage of its curation and hospitality, even if just for a croissant and a coffee.

Bellaiche said Printemps has good reason to come to New York. “In Paris, U.S. tourists are a priority. We’ve been focusing on this segment. In fact, we tripled our business with Americans in France from 2019 to 2024. So being present in the U.S. helps create a very positive halo effect in France for American tourists.

“We know that New York is a difficult market, that it doesn’t need another department store per se. But we felt there was an opportunity to come with our own DNA — this French curation meets American hospitality is a good concept. And we’re all aware that Barneys is missing. Jeffrey’s is missing, and we felt we can recapture some of that consumer as well.

“Lastly, we saw the financial district as an opportunity and changing in a very big way. We feel we are opening there at the right time,” Bellaiche added, citing the recent openings of Cipriani South Street, the Perelman Performing Arts Center, new residential developments and an influx of fashion, media and tech firms to an area formerly dominated by financial workers.

Printemps isn’t expecting to capture much of the uptown crowd, but Bellaiche said, “We think we can attract specific clients that want to see our beautiful store, experience the amazing service, dine with us, spend a few hours with us, and buy. We are an example of ‘retail-tainment’ where [the setting] is much more than a store. We have in Paris 15 restaurants with 1,000 seats for restaurants and coffee, of which 400 have direct views on the Eiffel Tower, or the opera or Sacre-Coeur in Montmartre. You can enjoy shopping. You can have your lunch. You can go to a conference.

“We have so many things happening on weekends. You can learn to make a flower bouquet, attend a fashion show and end the day with tea time or a beautiful dinner, and maybe visit the personal shopping salon in the meantime. You can spend a bunch of hours at Printemps in Paris. It’s much more than a store. It’s really experiential. And we want New York to be the same but on a different scale — a more condensed, local experience, a touch of Parisian life married with New York. French savoir faire meets American hospitality.”

Inventiveness and Innovation

The interior design of Printemps New York was inspired by a French apartment, being divided into ten areas, or rooms, as Printemps officials say, for different concepts and categories. They’ve named each. For example, there’s the 6,800-square-foot “Playroom” for casual clothes, denim, outerwear, activewear, a sneaker shop and a café, providing a sense of discovery, but it’s still all luxury. There’s also the “Curiosity Corner,” a perpetually changing space for gifting and holiday-related merchandise.

The Salon, with its intricate wood flooring and floral-patterned carpets and textiles, houses women’s ready-to-wear and accessories. There’s La Garçonnière for menswear, distinguished by its pink moiré wallpaper, soft pink curtains and pastel frescoes. The “Boudoir,” with double-height ceilings, gold-colored metal cladding and cracked lacquer screens from the Parisian atelier Maury, houses evening wear and vintage clothing, and high fine jewelry. The Salle de Bain beauty and spa area contains treatment pods for skin care, hair blowouts, makeup and color.

“Everything started with us wanting to bring joy to this place,” said Laura Gonzalez, the French interior designer and architect on the Printemps New York project. “We want Printemps to be playful. To be the unexpected, so we designed room-by-room, each with another story,” with its own touch and feel, said Gonzalez, who has also created Cartier and Louis Vuitton interiors, among other projects.

“It’s not pretentious. It’s luxury in an artful, colorful way, and it’s kind of democratic in the sense of being a luxury shop but you can also buy a coffee, a pair of socks or a high jewelry necklace.”

Her vision for Printemps New York initially came from a short movie created with AI by a group of students in Barcelona, that she happened to watch. “You see the city of New York invaded by vegetation and flowers. It’s beautiful.” She showed the movie to Printemps management, telling them, “This is what we want to do. We want to bring flowers, colors, joy to New York. And that was my first vision. This is what we try to do in every room in a different way,” sometime in a minimalist way, sometimes more maximalist.

In addition, Gonzalez and her team were inspired by the heritage of Printemps — the mosaics, the stained glass, the patterns, the original art. “But this is New York,” Gonzalez said. “It’s a new story. It’s a city where everything is possible. I don’t think this project could have been designed anywhere else because New York is very special. Here, there are no boundaries.”

For the project, Gonzalez modernized classic materials and developed new ones — traditional oak floors inlaid with natural stone, richly patterned textiles, stained glass panels, large frescos, vintage-looking handmade Art Nouveau tiles for a new take on an old Printemps pattern. Tabletops seemingly in marble are actually compressed recycled plastic from fashion industry excess.

In the landmarked Red Room, the mosaic walls could not be touched. They had to be completely protected, Gonzalez said. “We decided to make an entirely freestanding ‘forest of flowers’ made from ecological resin, which was developed especially for this project,” she said.

Along with ecological resin, Gonzalez used all upcycled materials in creating the store’s furniture, something not done before for large-scale retail concepts, and she found unique, antique pieces at French flea markets. Sustainability was important.

She teamed with both French and local artists, utilized traditional 19th-century craftsman’s materials as well as upcycled ones. “I always find a local artist to have a bridge. I think it’s very important to bring my culture and to be inspired by the local culture,” Gonzalez said.

With materials, “I mix a lot of things in ways that people don’t expect and wouldn’t think would work, and it works because I find the good balance. I’m like a scientist of interiors. I always mix different eras, like wood architecture from the 19th century mixed with very Art Deco-style marble detail with a very organic plaster shape. But it’s a lot of work because I redo a lot. If it’s too much. If it’s not enough. So it’s always [much] design work.”

“Laura brought many nodes and details from Printemps Haussmann to New York,” Bellaiche said. “In some rooms, we asked her to go for her natural style, which is maximalist Art Deco, Art Nouveau. For other rooms, we asked her to go a little bit beyond her natural style, and she did it with perfection. At the end of the day, you have a very consistent store, but with rooms that tells different stories.

“The most challenging thing — it’s not a department store. No shops-in-shop. No brand DNA to maintain,” Bellaiche said. “Printemps in Paris has a big vision and an amazing architecture but the interior is more like a department store everybody knows. This one is a concept store. We created a whole journey for the client and adapted the architecture between the landmarked part of the building and the modern part,” Bellaiche said, noting that Printemps New York is divided into two sections — to the north an Art Deco former Irving Trust bank with the Red Room, and to the south, a ’60s glass and metal extension. They’re linked by an alluring plastered, cylindrical, caterpillar-like corridor, merchandised with beauty products.

Teamwork

Collaborating with Gonzalez to craft works of art for the store were Paris-based Studio Pierre Marie, which reimagined Printemps Paris’ classic stained-glass features with a contemporary twist; Brooklyn-based sculptor William Coggin, who contributed a striking bar counter, drawing inspiration from the organic forms and sea coral textures, and French artist Charles Kaisin, who designed an installation for The Salon.

When creating the Maison Passerelle restaurant, Gonzalez worked with chef Gourdet, who culled photographs of sunsets from former French colonies and incorporated their culinary legacies into the menu. Using AI, they merged the photos into a singular image that Gonzalez redesigned and transformed into a fresco executed by Atelier Roma on the dining room’s wall.

Overall, Printemps New York is a multifaceted, visual eyeful, where the architecture and decor might overwhelm the merchandise for some. But then again, this isn’t a department store.

The Printemps Group, founded 160 years ago by Jules Jaluzot, operates 20 department stores and nine Citadium stores in France, as well as Place des Tendances, a fashion and beauty e-commerce site, and Made in Design, an online store for designer furniture, lighting and decoration. There is also a Printemps store in Qatar. The company is owned by a Luxembourg-based Qatari-backed investment fund Divine Investments SA.

Asked if Printemps could open another store in the U.S., Bellaiche replied that if the New York one makes its plan, “we might consider opening a few others, either in the U.S. or elsewhere in the world.”

He said that after two seasons, he would have a good sense of whether Printemps New York is a success. He said he sees lots of opportunity to grab space in the U.S., citing Miami and Los Angeles as examples. “Some retailers are struggling, and there’s some open space. If we decide to open more stores, we will have great opportunities.”

One space that’s been available for years is the former Barneys flagship on Madison Avenue. “We did not look at Barneys,” Bellaiche said. Nor were other spaces around town considered, he added. It was always to be lower Manhattan. “We felt the financial district was changing super fast,” Bellaiche said. “It’s always important to build on tomorrow’s traffic and not today’s traffic. Then the space was available and when we visited, we saw the Hildreth Meière Red Room [closed at the time] and we said,’wow’, we’ve got to do something with it. We have to give it back to New York.”