newspider.in
- Fashion
- March 4, 2025
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‘Printemps New York is not a classic department store’
“Not a department store”: in recent weeks, some of New York’s cabs have shed their traditional yellow to be adorned in green and display this graffitied phrase. The first wink from French department store Printemps ahead of its opening. In mid-2022, the French group surprised the department store world by announcing plans to open in the Big Apple. The project, entrusted to Laura Lendrum (formery of Gucci, Saint Laurent U.S.), was to install Printemps in the imposing 1950s Art Deco building at 1 Wall Street. After months of work, during which architect Laura Gonzalez combined the spirit of the Parisian department store with the heritage of the New York building, the two-storey, 4,000-square-metre space opens its doors this Thursday and will be inaugurated on March 20, to celebrate spring. The opening is part of the building’s renovation, and Printemps is presenting a concept combining fashion, luxury (with French, American and international brands) and gastronomy with a proposal entrusted to American star chef Grégory Gourdet, with no less than five restaurants in its spaces designed to provide visitors with a memorable experience. The Red Room, an imposing ten-metre-high space featuring a 1,200-square-metre purple and gold mosaic that was once the reception hall of a bank, referenced for its historical capital, is the pinnacle of the space and will house the department store’s shoe area. Those behind the project are determined to make the site more than just a department store, in a district undergoing transformation. This is a major gamble for the French group, in a complex context for department stores in America and one of globalized commercial tensions. Ahead of the opening, FashionNetwork.com spoke to Jean-Marc Bellaiche, chairman of the department store group, which has been owned by the Qatari Disa fund since 2013. Jean-Marc Bellaiche, CEO of the Printemps group – Le Printemps FashionNetwork.com: You’re opening this New York department store a few days after Donald Trump, the American…
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