Printemps' New York outpost blooms with possibility – and enchanting design

‘I never think people die. They just go to department stores,’ Andy Warhol once quipped.

If heaven is a department store, then Printemps' recently opened New York outpost is one whose pearly gates we’d happily crash.

Only this department store’s gates aren’t composed of pearls; instead, visitors to the new Financial District satellite of the storied Parisian retail mecca are greeted from its Wall Street entrance by towering bronze art deco doors which open into the city’s most enchanting new retail space in recent memory.

Barneys 2.0, this is not. Instead, its leadership describes Printemps not as a department store, but as an ever-evolving luxury concept where ‘we seamlessly integrate retail, hospitality, dining, and innovative programming with a curated approach to fashion and lifestyle’, said Jean-Marc Bellaiche, CEO of Printemps Group, in a press release.

‘Our objective is to inspire and bring people together,’ he added, ‘fostering a sense of belonging while enriching the consumer journey, setting a bold new standard for retail in the 21st century.’

To make its mark in a city with no shortage of luxury brick-and-mortar, the store’s creative team tapped French design supernova Laura Gonzalez to work her magic on virtually every inch of its 55,000 sq ft storefront.

‘We were very inspired by the heritage of Printemps [Paris] – the mosaics, the stained glass, the patterns, the original art,’ Gonzalez noted in a statement. ‘But this is in New York. It’s a new story.’

Part of that story was to unify two different segments of One Wall Street – a mixed-use skyscraper developed by Harry Macklowe, made up of a historic, art deco portion and a 1960s-era addition. Gonzalez’s solution was to celebrate what’s there while adding rich layers of colour, atmosphere, and narrative.

The resulting two-storey department store – which opens officially Friday 21 March – feels like a jewellery box, with each of its ten primary areas revealing itself like a secret drawer. Take the ground-floor ‘playroom’, where shoppers can get an espresso beneath a green-striped circus tent at Café Jalu; try on limited-edition Nikes in a grotto-like sneaker nook; or snag a gift for a friend, housed in bookshelf-like displays.

Upstairs, via a set of escalators, the mood is decidedly more sophisticated, with timber displays, plush carpets, and green inlaid marble floors. Lush, hand-painted frescoes that bring to mind the layered jungle scenes of Henri Rousseau trace the ceilings along with millegrain-style mouldings. On this floor, you can discover clothing, housed beneath cloche-like plaster ‘bird cages’ (25 per cent of the store’s labels are available to shop exclusively at Printemps); shop menswear in a pink moiré-swaddled corner; try on clothes in boudoir-like changing rooms; or get a handbag repaired at an in-store leathergoods repair kiosk. You can even buy some of the store’s furniture – upcycled by Gonzalez herself – straight from the showroom floor.

The trick to uniting the historic portion of the building with the new? A sinuous plaster-clad beauty corridor where you can discover cult and storied French beauty brands alike. An adjoining spa offers manicures and Guerlain products alongside a champagne bar and – further beyond – a couture boudoir, which is currently displaying Jean Paul Gaultier confections.

The idea is that a customer, between a couture fitting or a manicure, can freely wander the store’s nooks and crannies, champagne in hand, just as they would in a friend’s apartment. Even the bathrooms – with their lustrous hand-painted tiles, flattering lighting, and vibrant stone floors – feel as considered as the champagne bar. In the coming months, all of these creature comforts will be joined by a Printemps wine store and Maison Passerelle, a new restaurant by Printemps’ culinary director, the James Beard Award-winning chef, Gregory Gourdet.

Printemps' most pulse-quickening moment, by far, is its dazzling Red Room, a tiled, art deco vestibule off the Wall Street entrance that now contains a dream-like shoe salon. The room, designed by pioneering muralist Hildreth Meière in 1931 and clad in more than 13,000 sq ft of intricate red-and-gold tile mosaics, remained inaccessible to the public for years. No more. Gonzalez designed monumental spindly metal flowers that function as display racks and lighting and sprout throughout the space. Amid the glow, the room – which was designated as an interior landmark last summer – sparkles anew like Dorothy’s ruby-red slippers.

New York, says Gonzales, is ‘a city where everything is possible. I don’t think this project could have been designed anywhere else, because New York is very special. Here, there are no boundaries.’

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