Beauty parlour: Le Bon Marché unveils innovative store concept

Le Bon Marché may be Paris’ oldest department store, but the retailer is now sprucing up its interiors with modern styles.

Following its shoe department’s recent renovation, Le Bon Marché’s latest modern addition will be found on its first floor. A new beauty space, designed by the store’s own in-house team of architects, will be inaugurated in September, challenging the traditional perceptions of beauty shopping with an innovative new approach: to create a beauty grocery-store concept.

The ’little grocery store of beauty’ will house 57 global brands, all of which are new to France. Some of these will be sold as store exclusives, such as Swedish skincare brand Björk & Berries – known for its eco-luxurious perfumes, candles, and skincare products crafted using birch leaves and barks – and the award-winning essential oil specialist, Aromatherapy Associates.

The 300 sq m space, which boasts parquet flooring, titian-coloured exposed brick walls set against large windows opening on to the leafy streets of Paris, will be furnished with streamlined chairs designed by Paulin and an armchair by Frattini, positioned next to oak and blackened steel counters with white lava countertops. The store, generously filled with bottles of fragrances and aromatic lotions, also stocks antique herbalist’s boxes, creating a mood more akin to a loft-style apartment than a bare department store.

With beauty favourites such as Kevin Murphy on offer, and an express hair styling bar and Colour Forever nail service available, Le Bon Marché’s original beauty grocery store is sure to offer a cornucopia of pleasures.