After waiting in line, a steady stream of visitors on a recent spring day strolled inside French luxury retailer Printemps’ first and newly opened U.S. outpost in New York. They were about to glimpse space designed to look nothing like a typical store.
Upon entering the emporium at the base of One Wall Street, an office building converted into a condominium tower, visitors immediately saw that the two-story expanse stood apart from traditional high-end U.S. department store space. Its signature highlight: the nearly century-old, gold mosaic-covered Red Room, designed by architect Ralph Walker and art deco muralist Hildreth Meière, showcasing the women’s shoe section.
Printemps New York is set up as a museum-like commercial space to be experienced, and it has a rich history. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission last year designated the Red Room, once a bank reception area, an interior landmark, describing it as “a glittering, sculptural jewel box.”
It's this level of pizzazz, industry professionals say, that attempts to show where retail could be headed, as department stores have lost foot traffic and e-commerce takes a growing share of consumer spending. Consumers are also increasingly allocating more spending to experiences over physical goods.
Printemps is just one luxury retailer seeking to crack the code on experiential retail and providing opportunities for visitors to take photos aimed at social media, among the ingredients the industry sees as key to driving foot traffic. Louis Vuitton’s new temporary New York flagship in midtown Manhattan includes its first U.S. chocolate shop and cafe alongside features such as a soaring atrium containing 50-foot installations of the brand’s signature trunk. At Saks Fifth Avenue in midtown, French eatery L'Avenue has opened what’s billed as a “distinctive dining destination.”
Outside New York, Just One Eye in Los Angeles blends retail fashion and a gallery aesthetic with unique sculptures and furniture, while The Webster, with stores in such cities as Atlanta, Miami and Houston in addition to New York, is known for its distinct design and what it calls a “highly curated” experience.
To be sure, the jury is still out on whether Printemps New York can get shoppers to spend once they step inside. In New York, some are watching to see whether the lure of Printemps could be strong enough to build a luxury shopping hub in lower Manhattan, where none exists.
The store offers varied goods, experiences
Printemps' menu of attractions goes beyond hosting the likes of a Jean Paul Gaultier Haute Couture exhibit or selling designer clothing and accessories from French labels Cartier and Christian Dior to U.S. shoe names Nike and Birkenstock. The 55,000-square-foot store also features an all-day cafe, a cocktail lounge, a champagne counter, a raw bar overlooking Broadway serving pastis colada drinks and Creole shrimp cocktail, as well as a fine-dining restaurant.
“The biggest problem with retail is people not coming to your store,” Oliver Chen, a TD Cowen retail and luxury goods analyst, said in an interview. “You have to be highly experiential and have a unique point of view. You want to offer a great service so people … are engaged and passionate. Food … brings you natural traffic. Having a store experience that’s curated is very important too. Consumers today want to be surprised and delighted and aren’t going to a store to look at piles of stuff.”
With the store's opening, the French retailer is taking a shot at the United States, one of the world's largest luxury markets, 160 years after Printemps — meaning "spring" — opened its first department store on Boulevard Haussmann in Paris. Today the retailer has 20 locations in France with just one other overseas location aside from Manhattan in Doha, Qatar, a spokesperson told CoStar News.
“Printemps New York is not a department store, instead it represents a visionary approach to the future of retail — where we seamlessly integrate retail, hospitality, dining, and innovative programming with a curated approach to fashion and lifestyle,” Jean-Marc Bellaiche, CEO of Printemps Group, said in a statement.
The United States is "essential" in Printemps' international development strategy, and "opening in New York offers high visibility and growth potential,” he said in 2022 when Printemps signed the lease. He said then Printemps "can bring something unique, both to its engaged local consumer base and the strong tourist flows" New York welcomes.
Chen said he has visited the store himself and he, too, sees it as an example of where the retail industry is headed.
Retailers try to balance changing consumer tastes
Still, as upscale stores try to stand out, larger concerns of shifting consumer tastes are weighing on the retail industry. The global market for personal luxury goods, minus the impact of currency translations, dropped 2% in 2024, its first decline in 15 years excluding the pandemic period, as younger Generation Z customers’ “advocacy for luxury brands continued to decline,” consultancy Bain & Co. said in a study in January.
The question of how the U.S. tariff situation may play out also threatens to undermine consumer confidence and luxury spending, Chen said, adding that "consumers hate uncertainty."
Still, Printemps New York, featuring interconnected rooms each with its own distinct theme, is placing a bet shoppers will come back simply because they like to spend time there. The store was designed by Paris-based architect Laura Gonzalez, who said she took her inspiration from “the heritage of Printemps” in the context of New York, which she described as a “city where everything is possible.” In the Red Room, for instance, there's an “entirely freestanding forest of flowers, made from ecological resin” because preservation rules meant Gonzalez couldn’t attach anything to the walls, she said in a statement.
“It’s amazing that you're in Manhattan, and then you walk in here and it feels like its own little bubble of surrealism,” Amelia Forman, an economist with a passion for interior design who was visiting Printemps New York with her parents and their dog from Hoboken, New Jersey, told CoStar News. “There’s a playful element to every part of the design. … It feels a little bit like Willy Wonka. … This is a much-younger approach than the typical department store in New York. … It's more experience-based.”
Sandy Lanzone, a retired college professor who lives in the neighborhood, was recently in the store for the second time in just about a week. Enjoying a cup of tea with a friend at the cafe, which serves French pastries made in-house, Lanzone said she has been trying to persuade her daughter and best friend who live in New Jersey to check it out.
“It's just really a nice place to come in the day and have a tea or a little biscuit with it, or go to the raw bar,” she said. “I’m in love with the Red Room. The whole thing is beautiful,” she said.
Retailers look to create a new neighborhood anchor
A high-profile New York opening doesn't always ensure staying power. Other luxury retailers including Neiman Marcus, Barneys, Italy’s 10 Corso Como and Japan’s Takashimaya have all closed shops in the city. Saks Fifth Avenue was said to have shut its downtown Manhattan women's store in January 2019 just about two years after its opening across from the World Trade Center complex. Saks reportedly said at the time shoppers favored buying online and at its iconic Fifth Avenue flagship in midtown.
Lee Block, president of RTL, previously known as Winick Realty Group, one of New York’s largest retail brokerages that has expanded nationally, admitted he ended up buying a pair of sneakers at Printemps New York recently on his first visit to check out the space.
The store "takes you out of the hustle and bustle of the city and puts you into a more whimsical, beautiful environment, and makes you want to partake in what they are offering," he said in an interview. “It will be very intriguing to watch [Printemps'] hopeful success in this location,” he said. “Other retailers are looking to them to see how they do, what kind of traffic they garner.”
While the Financial District always has had a “small foothold of luxury,” Printemps New York “is more front and center as an anchor for the neighborhood,” Block said.
While upper Madison Avenue, Fifth Avenue or SoHo areas are known for their slew of luxury shops, the Financial District hasn't typically been considered a prime or luxury retail corridor. In fact, the neighborhood doesn't get featured as such in market reports published by various brokerages.
Market analysts are keeping an eye out for that to change. Tiffany & Co. and Hermès are just around the corner from Printemps New York. Across West Street at the mixed-used Brookfield Place complex, there are luxury shops including Louis Vuitton. Brooks Brothers recently said it’s returning to lower Manhattan with the opening of its largest store in the city.
For Printemps New York, the opening comes as the Financial District, lagging behind the pandemic office recovery of other Manhattan markets, has evolved into a live, work, play neighborhood with office-to-residential projects such as One Wall Street or ground-up construction including 130 William St.
“Printemps is an iconic brand, and this concept is a truly innovative mix of fashion, wellness and dining,” Jessica Lappin, president of the Alliance for Downtown New York, told CoStar News. “The space is beautiful and extraordinary. It should serve as a magnet, and it also reflects how retail is evolving in lower Manhattan. … The hope is that Printemps will act as an anchor for luxury brands to tap into the potential of lower Broadway, and from what we've heard from brokers, interest from these retailers is already well underway."