PARIS — As luxury grapples with a slowdown, legacy department store Printemps is reopening its designer-focused L’Endroit corner, making a play for more exclusives and a focus on discovery to entice increasingly cautious consumers.
Opening Wednesday following a revamp and significant size expansion, the concept space now houses nearly 30 brands, around 70 percent of which are exclusive to Printemps. These range from established names such as Jean Paul Gaultier to emerging labels including Julie Kegels, Rowen Rose and Pauline Dujancourt.
But for Printemps, the project is about more than adding floor space for a few new brand names.
The department store is rethinking its approach to luxury, as consumers are now pushing back against a decade of increasingly standardized and ubiquitous products.
“We still have high value customers everywhere, they exist, but they’re looking for something different. We lost them with the mass approach, a marketing approach that normalized luxury for everybody,” said Printemps chief merchandising officer Maud Barrionuevo. “This is not the sense of luxury.”
Luxury should return to “know-how, a purpose, a meaning, a sense, an emotion, a storytelling,” she contended.
That differentiation in its view lies in exclusivity, a focus on emerging designers and a stronger editorial point of view.
“Our mission is really to be the ultimate destination in curation for luxury and designer womenswear,” she said.
For Printemps, one of the central challenges facing the luxury industry today is that exclusivity has become harder to maintain.
Luxury products have never been more accessible, thanks to e-commerce, retail proliferation and global marketing strategies. While those tactics helped fuel years of growth, they have also contributed to a sense of homogenization, claimed Barrionuevo.
At the same time, aspirational consumers are pulling back due to steep price increases, so many luxury companies are increasingly focused on their highest-spending clients. But those shoppers are less motivated by logos and more interested in craftsmanship, rarity and personal connection.
“One factor for the crisis we’re having now is that luxury brands are more accessible than before,” she said. “But at the end, customers want to spend their money on one-of-a-kind experiences, instead of normalized luxury.
“Printemps, since the beginning, has been a trendsetter with a fashion-forward approach,” she said, adding that the retailer still has a role to play in this increasingly competitive luxury landscape by focusing on exclusivity and discovery. “We are building a true differentiating destination.”
The expansion of L’Endroit also reflects the growing importance of curation as a retail strategy.
Rather than competing directly with luxury brands on scale or marketing spend, Printemps is positioning itself as a curator to identify emerging talent and quality of craftsmanship that is good value for money — no matter the price point.
The concept extends beyond merchandising and includes intensive staff education.
“It’s also a way to propose a different vision to our customer,” she said. “They want to discover, they want to feel something different, they want to see that the staff is delivering their own vision, and understand why did we do those buys, and why it’s important to come to Printemps and discover those brands. In the end, it’s storytelling.”
Marie Barrionuevo
Vincent BLOCQUAUX
At the center of that effort is a belief that shopping itself is changing.
“Luxury is not just to buy something anymore,” she said. “It’s to live something, to have an experience.”
That emphasis on experience is helping create opportunities for smaller and emerging brands.
While established luxury houses still dominate overall sales, Printemps sees growing consumer interest in designers with distinctive creative visions and strong narratives around craftsmanship and production.
When evaluating new brands, the team looks beyond aesthetics alone. Barrionuevo said factors include a designer’s creative perspective, craftsmanship, savoir-faire and the larger brand story behind the label.
Take as an example Kegels, who has shown on the official Paris Fashion Week calendar since 2024. Barrionuevo noted that the young Belgian designer has what she described as “this very intellectual approach” and “a new vision of fashion, a new vision of the woman.”
Kegels has been invited to present her collection in the department store’s exclusive private salons, to meet directly with customers and talk about her brand vision.
Barrionuevo added that customers are becoming increasingly interested in how products are made and what brands stand for.
“The way luxury is seen is evolving,” she said. “It’s not seen now as a marketing approach. It’s more about the know-how, on the way you’re defining the product, the purpose, the meaning.”
That shift, she said, creates new opportunities for independent designers to compete for attention.
“A younger or new designer has more possibility now to speak and to elevate their brand, considering that the public and the customers are now listening.”
Ultimately, however, Printemps’ strategy depends as much on people as products.
The retailer employs a team of roughly 40 to 50 personal shoppers in Paris, who work closely with top-spending clients and serve as ambassadors for the store’s designer offering.
Training plays a central role in that process. Designers regularly visit the store to educate sales teams about their collections and creative philosophies.
Kegels has also participated there — including hosting training for all the sales teams to be better versed in her brand.
L’Endroit’s reopening is phase one of a wider refurbishment of the retailer’s women’s building, with the three lower floors expected to be completed by mid-2027.
