The World Cup might be in full swing but in Paris ‘le foot’ struggles to be heard above the noise of the fashion crowd. John Ryan reports

P aris is by tradition the European centre of fashion. Somehow, a trip to the City of Light always has the potential to quicken the retail pulse and it is rare that you don’t come across something new, or encounter some piece of visual merchandising that would clearly leave foreign rivals wondering why they didn’t think of it.

The retail point of departure for most visitors and locals is probably Boulevard Haussmann, home of ‘les grands magasins’, for which read Galeries Lafayette, Printemps and, oddly, a branch of C&A.

In the adjacent Opéra district there has been a none-too-subtle colonisation by overseas retailers. Zara was the first, opening nearly two decades ago; the latest is a Desigual flagship store, which opened last Friday.

After all of this, depending on the depth of your pockets, it’s either a taxi ride down to the Boulevard St Germain or the Marais, both home to more cutting-edge retail.

What was surprising on this visit, given the general enthusiasm for the national football team, is how relatively little evidence there was here of the fact that we were into the second week of the World Cup - although sports and street fashion emporium Citadium did its best to make up for the lack.

Citadium

This used to be a single sports store, but has now been carved up into a series of shop-in-shops, with fashion stalwart Pull and Bear occupying almost the whole of one of the upper levels.

The entrance to the building has been decked out with a football pitch-styled graphic that screams ‘le foot, le foot, le foot’ - an in-your-face reminder that the World Cup is in full swing and that Citadium is the place to get your favourite team’s colours and associated merchandise.

It is the same deal immediately inside the circular ground floor, where wooden palettes, stacked on top of each other and with the Brazilian, French and British (yes, British, not English) flags painted on them, provide a hint of the partisan nature of this month-long competition.

Across many other parts of the store, the generally sports-based brands that have taken space have opted to join in the football fun, with the prize perhaps going to the Manga comic football team (‘Japan’s League’), representing cod-Japanese brand Okawa, all looking appropriately menacing.

Printemps

Paris is perhaps better known for couture and prêt-à-porter than for football. And in homage to this, department store Printemps has opted to fill its windows with glitzy neon reminders of the brands it stocks.

It does so, however, in a sparing manner, with just one brand name per window. Set against a blacked-out background, each of the brand names is spelt out theatrically in orange-red.

On its own, this would amount to dramatic Spartan bling. But, where the big brands are, a handbag inevitably follows. In Printemps, a mechanical metal hand, suspended from the ceiling of each display window, holds a handbag. It turns slowly, allowing this single piece of merchandise to be inspected at leisure: it is about making an icon of each display.

But the real point about this long series of windows is to illustrate the continuing primacy of the big brands as part of what Paris and Printemps fashion represents. This means only major international names, such as Dior, Gucci, Prada and Chanel are given

window space.

Desigual

Already reasonably well-established as a fashion player in the French capital, Barcelona-based fashion brand Desigual opened a flagship store here early this month. Covering three floors, this space sets out the full Desigual offer. Its location, around the corner from L’Opéra, is proof of the seriousness with which chief executive Manel Adell views the need to expand rapidly beyond the brand’s Spanish roots.

It is worth noting that, when he came to the helm in 2002, sales were just €8m (£6.6m). In 2010, Adell says, Desigual will take E450m (£373.8m). The chain has enjoyed year-on-year growth of 60% since he took over.

In Paris, it is the familiar Desigual style of oriental bazaar meets blue-tiled Moorish palace meets stripped down warehouse that greets shoppers.

It is a measure of the success of Desigual’s marketing techniques that, across the whole of central Paris, shoppers could be seen clutching the free Desigual-branded bags that were given away outside the store on the first two days of opening.

Uniqlo

The Japanese fashion brand opened its third global flagship, covering 21,000 sq ft, at the end of last year: the others are in London and New York. The store is housed in a historic Haussmann-period building dating from 1866 and a feature of the interior is the high level of natural daylight afforded by a large atrium.

The stainless steel staircase that leads into the shop is a real crowd-pleaser and acts as a shop window for the store. On its own, its shiny form would probably be enough to lure passing shoppers, but each step has been given a red scrolling dot matrix display, imparting a high-tech feel in keeping with the brand.

The motif is continued in-store, with similar displays used in the lower part of the atrium, making the store atypical in terms of the Opéra retail panorama, although the nearby Desigual store does carry an LED window display that gives an animated billboard effect.

Dailymonop

As one of the grand names of French retail, Monoprix is held in the same sort of affection by consumers as Woolworths once was in the UK.

However, unlike Woolworths, Monoprix has undergone a process of reinvention during the past decade and one of the spin-offs from this has been the format rethink that is Dailymonop.

Increasingly, retailers have woken up to the fact that there is money to be made from providing convenience shopping coupled with quick, but seated, eating. In France, Dailymonop tussles with the Chez Jean chain for this territory and this example, in the La Défense district, in the west of the city, shows how quickly the format has evolved. It may be basic, but the tills were ringing and its simplicity meant that those seeking food either to take away or to sit down and eat were being catered for rapidly. In the UK, the nearest equivalent might be M&S Kitchen, although it is probably aimed at a more upscale demographic.

Merci

Opened in March 2009, this 15,000 sq ft store, on the site of a former wallpaper factory dating from the 19th century and in one of the less fashionable parts of the trendy Marais district, is a phenomenon.

Merci’s mix of fashion and homewares is posited upon three price levels: entry, “raisonable” and premium. It is the product selection and visual merchandising, however, that has proved a massive hit with Parisian shoppers.

Just inside the main entrance, there is a foyer featuring an art-like installation (although everything is on sale) that is changed every month. This provides a constant reason for shoppers to come back, according to Jean-Luc Colonna, Merci’s commercial and marketing director

Merci has a highly unusual business model. Suppliers to the store are invited to devote a portion of the mark-up that they would normally charge to a foundation that will fund overseas aid projects in Madagascar. The aid will begin at the end of 2010.

Colonna says that, having enjoyed a turnover of €11m (£9.1m) this year, the store is on target to pay for itself within 18 months of opening.

Paris facts

  • Principal shopping areas Boulevard Haussmann, Champs Élysées, Boulevard St Germain, Le Marais
  • Recent mid-market arrivals Desigual and Uniqlo
  • Recent bohemian warehouse arrival Merci
  • Odds of France winning the World Cup 20/1