Luxury goods as seen on display at the new Printemps store in New York. Photo: Lanna Apisukh/The New York Times
Printemps, a French department store that just opened its first New York outpost in lower Manhattan, is aiming to do what few stores of its ilk have lately done in that area: stay in business.
The store at 1 Wall Street, about a five-minute walk from The New York Stock Exchange, is in a part of Manhattan that has recently had a poor track record with luxury retail emporiums.
That may be why a marketing campaign emphasises that it is “not a department store”.
Saks Fifth Avenue’s store in the Brookfield Place mall was open for little more than two years before it closed in 2019.
A South Street Seaport location of 10 Corso Como, the Milanese concept store beloved for its selection of clothes, art, furniture and books, came and went even faster: It closed in 2020, about 18 months after it opened.
Printemps’ store in New York is a second coming – a location in Denver lasted about two years after opening in the late 1980s.
It comes at a time when department stores, once a bedrock of the American shopping experience, have also been closing at a rapid clip across the country.
In February 2024, Macy’s announced that it would shutter about 150 locations over a three-year period (while opening some 15 new locations of Bloomingdale’s, which Macy’s also owns).
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Actress Katie Holmes at an opening party for the new Printemps store. Photo: Lanna Apisukh/The New York TimesIn December, Neiman Marcus, one of the country’s most illustrious names in retail, was acquired by the company that also owns Saks Fifth Avenue. Soon after came announcements that certain Saks and Neiman Marcus locations were closing.
Printemps – the French word for spring – is hoping to buck these trends by offering New Yorkers and tourists a two-story bazaar with Murano light fixtures, mosaic walls, spa treatment pods, bars and restaurants, marble and parquet floors, exhibits of archival haute couture and Champagne to go.
Browsing the store’s maze of corridors – which are filled with French goods like Jacquemus handbags, Avene thermal water spray, Courreges minidresses, Carel Mary Janes, vintage Yves Saint Laurent suits and Embryolisse moisturiser – can feel like a decadent Easter egg hunt.
“The French have good taste, they know what’s beautiful s they have the level of sophistication,” Jean-Marc Bellaiche, the global CEO of Printemps, said at a party for the store’s opening.
About a quarter of the brands it carries are not sold elsewhere in the US, he added.
But the store’s hospitality will have a distinctly American flavour.
“Americans are better when it comes to saying, ‘Welcome,’ ” Bellaiche said. “They are warmer. The French are a bit aloof.”
The store’s offerings are a reason he thinks it will succeed. Bellaiche did not consider opening it in another part of New York, he said.
Along with actress Parker Posey, actress Katie Holmes was among the party’s most notable guests.
Holmes, 46, said she thought Printemps had the allure to become a shopping destination.
“It has this museum quality to it,” she said. “It feels like something to do; it’s more entertaining than anything.”
Coco Baudelle, 35, a filmmaker in Manhattan who worked at a department store as a teenager, described Printemps as more inviting than its peers.
“It doesn’t have the neon bright lights that put you in the mindset that you are there to shop and receive the sales pitch,” she said, calling the space “warm”.
Baudelle added that places like the nearby office tower known as the WSA Building have brought new buzz to the financial district.
“So many brands and young people are there,” she said of the building, where Baudelle had been just before the Printemps party. “It’s relevant and exciting.”
Some have characterised Printemps as filling a gap that has existed in New York’s retail landscape since the closure of Barneys New York in 2020. Kelly Bensimon, 56, a former model and star of The Real Housewives Of New York City, said as much at the party, as have publications like Air Mail on social media.
Founded in Paris in 1865, Printemps has 19 locations in France that include an outlet in Giverny and a Tudor-style corner store in the seaside town of Deauville.
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Its flagship store on Boulevard Haussmann in Paris is a network of three buildings containing products from some 3,000 brands. There is also a location in Doha, Qatar.
The company was started around the same time as other famous French stores like Le Bon Marche (1852) and La Samaritaine (1870), both of which, like Printemps, catered to the country’s growing bourgeoisie.
“Being French and having an exotic appeal,” might help Printemps succeed, said Hunter Abrams, a 33-year-old photographer in Manhattan.
“There’s nothing filling that in-between of fashionable things that are also wearable and maybe push the boundary a bit.”
But Abrams wondered how recent economic events could affect the store’s prospects.
“We are in a very precarious financial situation and it does feel like we are on the edge of a cliff,” Abrams said. “So who knows. I want it to work.” – ©2025 The New York Times Company
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
