A piece of Paris landed in New York.
The French luxury retailer Printemps officially opened his first American store this week in the city’s financial district. The retailer celebrated its opening on Friday, which coincided with the beginning of spring – its namesake.
The 55,000 square feet store extends over two floors and has a wide range of goods, including clothing, shoes, handbags, makeup and more. About 25% of its brands are neither available nor rare in the United States, such as the Joseph Duclos brand, a French luxury name that has made a handbag sported by Taylor Swift, CEO of spring Jean-Marc Bellaiche said.
In an interview with CNBC, Bellaiche said that the retailer aims to stand out from other luxury players with the catchy architecture of the store; Unique mix of popular luxury brands and French brands that are difficult to find; And programming and services, which include beauty and spa treatments and repairs of clothing and accessories.
Printemps Group was founded in 1865 and operated 20 department stores in France. Compared to its French stores, the American location has more of an experiential fold, with rotating exhibitions of goods resembling pop-up stores and food concepts, including a restaurant and a coffee with French pastries. Its fun design is inspired by a Parisian apartment, and it is located in One Wall Street, a historic Art Deco skyscraper.
For example, one of the strengths of the Printemps store is the red room. The Art Deco style room was decorated from the floor to the ceiling with red and gold mosaics by the mastery Muralist Hildreth Meière and completed in 1931. It was previously a reception room and a banking room for the Irving Trust and Bank Company, and was designated interior by the benchmark by the New York marks preservation commission.
Spring restored the room and transformed it into a “shoe forest” where buyers can travel shoes or order a glass of wine in a neighboring bar.
The store will also include Maison Passerelle, a gourmet restaurant led by Gregory Gourdet, a double chef chef and triple winner of the James Beard Award. He will open in April.
Spring opens the American store while luxury expenses slow down around the world. Even some richer consumers have brought back discretionary purchases due to inflation and economic uncertainty. In China, a key market for high-end goods, luxury expenses have not rebounded at pre-pale levels.
Sales of the global luxury industry should increase by 1% to 3% per year until 2027, according to a report last month by the consulting firm Kearney. The report has awarded the slowdown to lower demand among Chinese consumers, inflationary pressures in the United States and the economic uncertainty fueled by commercial disturbances and changes in the Trump administration.
This is a change marked from 2020 to 2021, when global luxury spending jumped by around 27%, according to the Kearney report. Global luxury spending between goods and services totaled $ 500 billion in 2024.
However, Brian Ehrig, one of the authors of the report and partner in the practice of Kearney consumers, said the United States remained an attractive market for luxury brands due to consumer resilience.
“On a relative basis, we have the healthiest economy, if you look at the big economies,” he said. “And then the other is that Americans like to shop.”
Ehrig added that other high -end retailers have also doubled investments in important and catchy physical stores, such as Lvmh-Antend Tiffany & Co. and Louis Vuitton opening new stores in New York. He said that experience in person is more critical in a sector where items are delivered with labels and high prices expectations for personal services.
“There is something special to be in a luxury retail store, how you are taken care of and you are done to feel like a VIP when you are there,” he said. “And there is simply no way to do it online or on an iPhone.”
Other international retailers with lower prices are also expanding and open more stores in the United States, including Primark based in Ireland and Spain’s mango.
For spring, the American opportunity has become clear, especially after the pandemic of Covid-19, while more Americans visited Paris and came to its stores, Bellaiche said. In terms of sales, the Americans are the third spenders for printers after the French and the Chinese, he added. However, the Americans fill the gap, sales to American customers tripling in 2019 and 2024, he said.
Even with its luxury objective, Laura Lendrum, CEO of Primpyps America, said that the store mixes more accessible items for tourists or ambitious buyers who can stop for a cup of coffee or travel for a $ 50 gift.
Here is a look inside the store: