What Printemps is known for
Boulevard Haussmann’s domed grande dame since 1865 — seven floors beneath the art-nouveau cupola. 1923 cupola was dismantled in 1939 to protect it from bombing, stored at Clichy, and restored in 1973 by the grandson of its original designer using family-workshop drawings.
Jules Jaluzot founded Printemps on Boulevard Haussmann in 1865, and the store pioneered with commercial daring — among the first to use electric lighting, to hold seasonal sales as events, and to treat its building as advertisement: the corner rotundas with their mosaic friezes and the Art Nouveau cupola of 1923, a listed jewel of stained glass, crown the store still. The dome now shelters a brasserie beneath its colored light, and the rooftop terrace of Printemps de l'Homme offers one of the quarter's best free panoramas across Paris rooftops to the Eiffel Tower. The store trades across fashion, beauty — its beauty floor is among Europe's largest — and home, positioned slightly younger than its Haussmann neighbor. Lunch under the cupola and the rooftop view are the essential Printemps experiences; the shopping floors are the connective tissue between them.
Book a table under the cupola for lunch rather than just photographing it; eating beneath the stained glass is the building's intended use of its own masterpiece.
In the press
How ORBIS reads this city
Best for — Historic Paris department store
Global
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In the Journal
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