Now that the launch dust has settled, we’re taking a look at Printemps New York and its entrance into the U.S. with a luxe retail concept built around hospitality, aspiration and imagination. Retailers and vendors alike have invoked Chicken Little’s mantra, “The sky is falling” for the last dozen or so years as technology’s disruption has rendered retail models flawed, archaic and irrelevant. Online has captured a growing wallet share and store traffic has declined. Covid irrevocably changed buying patterns. And now the latest wrinkle is the anxiety of tariffs. The call for an overall reset of the retail business model, a literal rethinking of shopping, is long overdue.
Transformative retail is made up of dreamers. Think Harry Selfridge, Herman Bergdorf, Barney Pressman, Stanley Marcus and Charles Harrod. It will likely take a few years for Printemps New York to turn a positive ROI, but it is playing the long game, banking on the changing profile of local businesses and residents, and evolving consumer trends.
Entrée Printemps
Printemps CEO Jean-Marc Bellaiche and Laura Lendrum (with a pedigree from Ralph Lauren, Chanel, Gucci, YSL et al.) joined forces and brainstormed on how to create a new shopping experience for consumers eager for social engagement, experiences and entertainment. And thus, the inception of Printemps New York and employee #1, Lendrum.
Four years in the making, with seemingly no expense spared (don’t we all wish we had the same capital budget), this 55,000-square-foot palace was conceived for delight and discovery. Printemps New York arrived on the U.S. retail scene appropriately on the first day of Spring 2025. With a lot of media fanfare and celebrity support, New York welcomed this retail concept, #not a department store, built around the idea of a French apartment. Printemps took Ralph Lauren’s French Renaissance-style New York mansion retail lifestyle concept to new heights, literally. The 33-foot ceiling soars.
Stores Are Fading Stars
Just in the nick of time too! Often discouraged shoppers look to physical store events and experiences for inspiration, food, fashion, social interaction and community as an alternative to digital shopping’s endless aisle, one-click checkout. The ideal retail store would be a modern-day agora, serving as the center of daily life; a gathering place to work, trade, and socialize supported by the latest technology. Beautiful stuff is not enough. People need enchantment and fantasy; think of Disney’s profitable success among children and parents alike.
Shoppers need a reason to go to physical stores and return again and again. As noted architect and Robin Report contributor, Kevin Roche stated in his analysis, Blurring the Retail Lines, we need new retail metrics to judge success such as dwelling time, social media engagement and return on experience. Roche went on to say that the future of retail is mixed-use, with the lines between retail, hospitality, entertainment, leisure, and workplace blurred. He also called for “VI – Visual Intelligence. In a world where all consumers are increasingly bombarded by immersive visual stimuli, the need for more meaningful and emotionally rich aesthetics has become a critical factor for success.”
Reimaging Shopping
Printemps New York is the poster child for a more exciting retail experience. Lendrum came away from that first conversation with the desire to create joy in shopping. Joining forces with architect Laura Gonzalez they created a space that transcends traditional retail formats. Simply put, it is an experiential retail concept store. Some have likened it to a gallery; visitors are exposed to a design-driven interior housed in a landmark space that is highly visual and eclectic and prompts curiosity and learning, in an approachable, tactile way.
If nothing else, Printemps New York is an homage to the power of interior design. Frescoes are inspired by Printemps Haussmann’s rotunda, there are references to Louis XIV’s Versailles royal parquet floors, the fluid design constructs of Art Nouveau transition to Art Deco, a salute Coco Chanel with a curved marble staircase, and an impressive shoe salon in the Red Room, the iconic Hildreth Meière designed lobby of Irving Trust created in 1929 (and landmarked in 2024) has soaring ceilings and three million red ombré and gold mosaic tiles lining its walls and ceiling.
This level of design detail evokes respect even from veteran retail skeptics a heartbeat before questioning the cost per square foot. But maybe that’s not the right metric, as Roche says. Elevating the taste level of the average shopper beyond T’s and jeans lifts retailers in general. Printemps New York is raising that bar for the accidental shopper who visits the store and the core sophisticated affluent customer who recognizes all the luxury cues.
L’Appartement
According to Bellaiche, “Printemps is more an ‘apartment store;’ it is a reimagined retail experience and hospitality-driven destination, offering an ecosystem where visitors can shop, relax, discover, dine, and be inspired.”
The apartment theme makes sense as a retail anchor housed in Harry Macklowe’s One Wall Street condominium project in the Art Deco converted office building, aiming to revitalize the Financial District with a luxury retail and hospitality destination.
In all there are 14 rooms – five dedicated to food and beverage, — at a cost one can easily imagine easily surpassing a few hundred million. Heavy on design and light on merchandise, God is in the details at Printemps. I imagine designer Gonzalez must have said to herself, “Let me design a place that feels like a fantasy ultra-luxe home” with all the accouterments for a sumptuous life—plush sofas, designer chairs, lots of natural light, modern art and objets d’art. Is it over the top? Perhaps, but this is an over-the-top experience many would be happy to get used to. One hopes that after would-be shoppers recover from the drama of the retail stage set, they get busy buying up any of the coveted French-curated luxuries.
Gamble? Sure, It’s a Gamble
Printemps New York is a gamble. For starters, it is asking even sophisticated, veteran customers to redefine a shopping experience in a location that many consider problematic. Cliched thinking is that the Michael Douglas 1987 Wall Street movie lifestyle lives on. But lower Manhattan’s profile is changing with a more diverse and youthful population. Its residents are wealthier too, with a higher median income than the average New Yorker and 36 percent earning more than $250,000 annually. New business tenants, from the art, design and fashion worlds are relocating to the Financial District and both Printemps’ New York executives and Macklowe hope to attract this upwardly mobile generation. Printemps’ circle widens to include uptown Manhattanites who want a novel immersive shopping experience or a dinner from James Beard award-winning chef Gregory Gourdet. Tourists, both domestic and international, visiting lower Manhattan are another target, admittedly more tourists than customers.
The store is not unlike a serpentine luxury retail theme park. Part showroom, part art installation, part discovery, and a lot of English countryside folly. The two-level store is highly curated. You can acquire The Falls vintage 70s three-piece suit, an embellished tour de force with buttons and beading: a deck of Tarot Cards, coffee table books of beautiful places, a cellphone case, or a candy jar, each of which is an investment. Even Nike sneakers have a gallery all to themselves, elevating the swoosh to an artform. At this writing (mid-May) it’s been open for nearly two months and more merchandise has arrived, new brands included and steady traffic of curiosity seekers and shoppers.
Following the European showroom model, tiny sizes are hung on the racks, and your size is hidden away in stock rooms. While you’re waiting, you can debate purchasing luxe necessities such as block crystal candlesticks or Dupont pens, which are all on display as art objects, or you can nibble on oysters from the Raw Bar and sip Champagne. The dressing rooms are not afterthoughts, they are designed to the nines, some with enough room and seating for a small party to group source the decisions of the day — which outfit to buy with which shoes, bag and crystal earrings.
Risky Retail
A rational retail operator or an MBA analyst might take one look at Printemps New York, calculate the cost-per-square-foot to support the décor, factor in the operating costs of the sales staff and the five bar/cafes, consider the foot traffic in the location (locals and tourists) and run fast in any direction. But transformative retail is made up of dreamers. Think Harry Selfridge, Herman Bergdorf, Barney Pressman, Stanley Marcus and Charles Harrod. It will likely take a few years for Printemps New York to turn a positive ROI, but it is playing the long game, banking on the changing profile of local businesses and residents, and evolving consumer trends. And Printemps is passionate about it. The bet is that Americans will have access to more unique French fashion while also driving them to the Boulevard Haussmann location when visiting Paris.
Sheer speculation here, but real estate magnate Harry Macklowe may have given the Qatari-backed investor fund Divine Investments SA (owners of Printemps) an irresistible real estate deal to sandwich Printemps New York in between the residential tower and Whole Foods to make a splash in New York City (and guarantee luxe shopping and dining for his new wife). If that’s the case, New York is the beneficiary of a shape-shifting retail experience.
