American department stores have tried everything to draw shoppers into their stores again: smaller locations, bigger locations, going upscale, going mass, seasonal pop-ups, exclusive collaborations, even kiosks for Amazon returns.
While there have been isolated successes here and there, too many consumers see these retailers as a symbol of nostalgia at best, and dusty obsolescence at worst.
With its first store in the US, Printemps is betting that its French sensibility will help it accomplish what American retailers so far have not.
Opening March 21 in Manhattan’s Financial District, Printemps New York, is the first US outpost for the French retailer, which operates 21 stores across France and the Middle East, including a nearly 500,000-square-foot, 24-story flagship in Paris. The New York store will be just over a tenth of that size, smaller than Bergdorf Goodman, but bigger than specialty store Dover Street Market.
Like traditional department stores, the sales floor will be divided by product category, from beauty and women’s ready-to-wear, and most of its 450 brands will sell inventory to Printemps on a wholesale basis. And like many of its American competitors, Printemps will host pop-ups, special events and service counters such as a repairs atelier.
But rather than measuring success in terms of sales per square foot, Bellaiche and his team, including CEO of America Laura Lendrum, are much more interested in the time customers choose to spend inside the store.
For instance, rather than putting high-margin categories like handbags on the ground floor where footfall tends to be highest, at Printemps New York, one of first points of contact for shoppers will be an all-day café and a gift section featuring lower-ticket items such as candles and casualwear.
“This is not a department store,” chief executive Jean-Marc Bellaiche told BoF. “This is more of a hospitality project.”
Printemps’ bet is that while customers tend to buy a $2,000 handbag no more than once a year, they’ll have multiple occasions to purchase more affordable novelty pieces. If anything, a $5 cappuccino will be a low-stakes incentive to linger inside Printemps’ bright, whimsical space designed by architect Laura Gonzalez.
The entire store, in fact, will be run like a luxury hotel or resort, where shoppers can spend an entire day simply hanging out. Like a hotel, Printemps New York will have its own culinary director: Gregory Gourdet, a James Beard winner and finalist on the popular cooking competition show Top Chef. There are five food and beverage options inside Printemps New York, all of which are owned and operated by the retailer, including the much-anticipated Maison Passerelle for which Gourdet will serve as executive chef.
This is not a department store. This is more of a hospitality project.
The idea is, Bellaiche said, “the more they spend time here, the more they buy”— a correlation that has been proven by not only Printemps’ flagship store in Paris but also other European department stores like Selfridges and Le Bon Marché that invest in dining, entertainment and cultural programming without seeking explicit returns. American retailers too have put stock into food and beverage options, to varying levels of success. Ralph Lauren, for example, has gone viral with its meticulously branded Ralph’s Coffee chain, which the brand has expanded globally in recent months. But others have treated dining concepts as an afterthought, without investing in quality or the necessary PR to garner buzz.
Printemps New York won’t exactly be reinventing the wheel. But by focusing on giving people a reason to visit rather than driving sales alone, Printemps hopes to be not just a store but a destination. Will this be enough for the Parisian shop to survive New York’s competitive and often treacherous retail landscape?
Location, Location, Location
When it comes to retail, the Financial District is a tricky neighbourhood. It draws plenty of tourists, who come to see the Wall Street bull statue, or to reflect at the 9/11 memorial and museum. But the area has seen a series of big names come and go: Saks and Milan’s 10 Corso Como both left the area after less than five years. The closest the neighbourhood has to a retail institution is the off-price mainstay Century 21, which reopened its Cortlandt Street flagship in 2023 after shuttering during the pandemic after nearly 40 years in business.
For Printemps, planting a flag in FiDi is an investment in the area’s future. While many financial firms have moved uptown, residents have moved in: the area’s population has increased by nearly two-thirds since 2014, to about 70,000 as of late last year.
More recently, FiDi has become something of a hub for up-and-coming fashion professionals, anchored by the newly leased WSA building on Water Street, which counts local labels like Theophilio, Rosie Assoulin and Bode as tenants.
“We are humble, but I think timing sometimes is an important matter. Saks and 10 Corso Como may have been here too early,” said Bellaiche.
The real reason Printemps chose its location came down to the architectural jewel of the space. Built in 1931, the Red Room lobby at One Wall Street is a historically landmarked hidden gem of art deco design, featuring floor-to-ceiling mosaics in various shades of red, orange and gold. The space was created to serve as a reception room for the Irving Trust and Bank Company, and had been closed off to the public for many years.
Bellaiche said he believes the Red Room alone will be able to entice visitors; as part of Printemps, it will house the store’s footwear assortment as well as a cocktail bar.
Inside Printemps’ ‘Pied-à-terre’
Bellaiche and his team conceived Printemps New York as the pied-à-terre to its Paris flagship, the main house. At just a fraction of its size, the new store has a winding layout with 10 separate areas all with different design conceptions. The first floor features the all-day Café Jalu, named after Printemps’ founders Jules and Augustine Jaluzot, and a sneaker room with an LED ceiling.
On the second floor, which wraps around the Whole Foods located next door, shoppers will encounter a womenswear section inspired by Printemps’ original design, a raw bar called Salon Vert, the menswear department, a slim futuristic beauty hall with a spa, and an eveningwear selection situated in a room with double-height ceilings with a pink marble staircase that descends into the Red Room Bar.
Every restroom in the store — it has four — has its own aesthetic theme, such as art nouveau and the ‘70s.
“We call it an apartment because we want people to discover the different rooms,” Bellaiche said. “Imagine a journey where you can have lunch and then go check out the Red Room, where you’ll enjoy a selection of shoes and end up with a drink or maybe dinner.”
Rebranding the Department Store
Unlike its other locations, Printemps New York will not have shop-in-shops. This was a conscious decision, Bellaiche said, to emphasise the sense of curation in the store. As a result, some notable large names may be missing from the mix, including Louis Vuitton, but a quarter of the matrix will be brands totally new to the US market, he added, such as leather goods label Camille Fournet and jewellery line Ophelia Eve.
We said from the very beginning we don’t see ourselves as another point of distribution.
The challenge today for all multi-brand retailers, online and off, is competition from brands that have convinced many of their customers to shop directly with them rather than through a third-party retailer. By focusing on experiences beyond product, Printemps hopes to opt out of the fashion commodities rat race. It’s also holding off on launching an American online shop until later in the year, instead leveraging its new store as the first point of contact for customers.
“We said from the very beginning we don’t see ourselves as another point of distribution,” Bellaiche said. “The US is a huge market, with players that are making billions of dollars. We have a small ambition to take our own piece of that cake, and we think we can do it with an omnichannel strategy and by surprising our clients.”
