GALERIES LAFAYETTE: THE PARIS SHOPPING DESTINATION 

Children’s fashion
A 5,000-square-meter Kidstore for children 12 and under displays the latest fashions from up-and-coming stylists and major brand designers. The section also has a full range of accessories, from state-of-the-art strollers to cuddle toys made from organic cotton, plus a bookstore, restaurant and nursery for taking a break with baby. The overall decoration reflects a high level of artistic creativity. There’s a special area for mothers-to-be, with a wide choice of brands and more space for moving about—the perfect place to open a gift list. The toy section also offers a broad selection of playthings.

Lafayette Homme (Mens store)
Galeries Lafayette entered a new market segment with the opening of a Lafayette Homme concept for today’s increasingly fashion-conscious men. Designed by architect Didier Gomez and covering four floors and 10,000 square meters, the store offers 250 French and foreign brands and has something to suit every man’s taste. It also features a vast 800 square-meter section for designer fashions, a special assortment of men’s colognes, a broad array of gift ideas, and a selection of both classic and contemporary leather goods. And for men in a hurry, there’s also a clothing alteration service. A second Lafayette Homme department has opened in our Bordeaux store with a complete lineup of upscale shoes, accessories, apparel, fragrances and gifts. In 2011, another Lafayette Homme will open in downtown Paris, in the Beaugrenelle shopping center.

Lafayette Maison – (Home furnishings)
Across the street from the main store, the Lafayette Maison is totally original, unique concept is entirely devoted to interior decoration and the art of living. The store looks like a gigantic, 10,000 square-meter house with 150 windows opening onto a world of fashion and the latest trends. Galeries Lafayette introduced a new and functional approach to different home living “worlds”, with themes such as cooking, resting, relaxing in the living room, gift giving, decorating and entertaining. The themes make it easy for visitors to find their way around the store and find inspiration to give their homes a personal touch. Fashion and trends truly come alive at Lafayette Maison. Since the concept opened in Paris, Lafayette Maison stores have opened in Nice, Amiens, Bayonne, Besançon, Dijon, Caen, Metz, Reims, Rouen, Marseille, Toulouse, Tours and Nantes...

Lafayette Gourmet – (Gourmet foods)
Covering 3,200 square meters, Lafayette Gourmet offers an array of more than 10,000 fine food products, 30% of which come from outside France. The focus is on quality and authenticity, whether for traditional products or original gourmet creations made with unusual ingredients and exotic flavors. The product lineup includes delicacies from around the world, for food lovers looking to expand their culinary horizons. A wine library with over 3,000 listed vintages will be extended with the April 2010 opening of a ”Bordeauxthèque”, which will set the standard for discerning French and international customers.


Fashion: it’s showtime!
For more than a century, Galeries Lafayette has always taken a theatrical approach to its display of contemporary trends. Early on, the chain realized how important it was to showcase fashion in order to excite customers and make shopping a truly unique experience.

That’s why leading architects like Georges Chedanne and Ferdinand Chanut were chosen to design an elegant, innovative building that enhanced the beauty of the items on display. Even before the expression “shopping experience” was coined, Galeries Lafayette was already pursuing the concept by constantly renewing its collections, changing window displays and organizing in-store events. In the 1950s, the store introduced a number of powerful new concepts, such as exhibitions devoted to foreign countries and the “3J” earlyseason promotional events, where fashionable items were sold at highly affordable prices. From Jules Védrine landing his plane on the store’s roof in 1919 and Edith Piaf singing La Vie en Rose in front of the Boulevard Haussmann windows in 1952 to Bob Wilson’s bold staging of the Festival de la Mode in 1996 and the international rollout of leading perfume brands, Galeries Lafayette has become a window on the world.

Galeries Lafayette is also a venue for leading artists in all fields. Directors Jérôme Savary and Alfredo Arias, filmmakers David LaChapelle and David Lynch, and designer Hilton McConnico have all deployed their talents to enliven the store. In 2001, Galeries Lafayette commissioned a work from videographer Pierrick Sorrin. Well-known architects have been invited to create new store areas, including Jean Nouvel in Berlin and Didier Gomez for Lafayette Homme.

Since 2005, Italian designer Valerio Festi has created an enormous lattice structure with thousands of points of light that covered the store’s entire façade for the year-end holidays. Pictures of the store front were beamed around the world, transforming the work into one of the most powerful symbols of Christmas and of Paris, the City of Lights. In March 2004, designers, graphic artists, photographers and sculptors like Ingo Maurer, Arik Levy and the team of Antoine+Manuel were commissioned to work on the new Lafayette Maison.

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