'What’s the point?': Paris fashion faces up to life
after lockdown
Socially distanced shopping proves a hard sell in the
French capital with few places open to show off
Alice
Pfeiffer in Paris
Published
onFri 22 May 2020 22.35 BST
Since shops
reopened in France last week, luxury fashion boutiques in the French capital
have been revamping their security measures to create a transformed high-end
experience.
In one of
the first countries in Europe to open for consumers to such an extent, luxury
destinations are becoming self-aware pioneers in inventing a new shopping
environment. The challenge is “to make people today feel charmed as much as
safe”, says Jennifer Cuvillier, the head of style at the department store Le
Bon Marché – no small challenge in the context of global luxury sales projected
to drop by 50% this year, according to a recent report by Baines.
Shoppers
are welcomed to Le Bon Marché by an eerily masked and gloved army of staff –
150 to be precise, one for each visitor at the store’s maximum capacity in
these post-confinement days. A shop assistant privately chaperones visitors
through the almost invariably glass-shielded displays.
In an
ambience lodged between a museum visit and a dystopian sci-fi movie, they
follow the mandatory curated route so as to avoid any potential physical
contact. The tills are shielded by acrylic screens, such as at Chanel on Rue
Cambon.
The majority
of the shops disinfect and quarantine any item that has been touched, for 48 to
72 hours. And, of course, the changing rooms are sanitised after every use. To
counter these rather daunting measures, brands seem to be focusing on offering
personalised and upgraded services: luxury labels including Louis Vuitton and
Christian Dior have begun offering private shopping sessions.
All the
efforts notwithstanding, a week after doors reopened, the initial rush seems to
have faded. While on 11 May, crowds flocked to the boutiques on the Champs
Élysées and Avenue Montaigne – a seemingly endless line of luxury-hungry
shoppers awaiting the opening of Louis Vuitton – the situation has radically
changed: Chanel, Céline and Yves Saint Laurent are all queue-less a week later,
and the boutiques almost empty. Sales assistants at Galeries Lafayette Champs
Élysées and Loewe both confirmed traffic had fallen significantly.
“There was
an initial craze that didn’t last,” notes Rémy Faure, a hair colourist. “One of
my clients went straight out on the 11th to buy an electric-blue Kelly bag at
Hermès. But a lot of people have started thinking more critically about their
life choices and needs during the confinement.”
Serge
Carreira, a fashion lecturer at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, says:
“With the absence of tourists, who make up the large majority of luxury sales,
boutiques are empty.”
Shopping is
not going away, he says, but it is changing: “Those who shop will do it
differently, more determinately; it won’t be a heat of the moment decision but
something thought out.”
Coming out
of Galeries Lafayettes Champs Élysées, Samantha, 34, and Elena, 33, suggest
that the slump in shopping is down to the fact that there is nowhere to show
off any new outfits. “À quoi bon?” (What’s the point?) grumbles Samantha.
Theatres, cinemas, restaurants, cafes and bars are closed. “The only places to
visit are shops,” adds Elena, for whom lèche-vitrine (literally “window
licking”, as the French call browsing) is one of the few outdoor activities
available in the city now.
According
to Carreira, the slowness could be due to habits gained in the lockdown:
“Shopping addicts shopped as much as they could during the confinement, many
people have adopted the habit and, one can assume, don’t see the point of going
out to a city still with a ghost-like feeling.”
Luxury stores open in Paris that’s empty of tourists
as France eases coronavirus lockdown restrictions
Luxury Parisian shops are testing customers’ appetite
for splashing out on goods again, though the dearth of international tourists
remains a major drag
Brands used
new hygiene routines, with Louis Vuitton steaming clothes tried on and
quarantining handbags; Christian Dior erected Plexiglas shields at tills
Reuters
Published:
4:30pm, 13 May, 2020
Shoppers,
using social distancing, wait in line to enter a Louis Vuitton shop in Paris,
France. The French began leaving their homes and apartments for the first time
in two months as the country cautiously lifted its lockdown restrictions.
Photo: APShoppers, using social distancing, wait in line to enter a Louis
Vuitton shop in Paris, France. The French began leaving their homes and
apartments for the first time in two months as the country cautiously lifted
its lockdown restrictions. Photo: AP
Shoppers,
using social distancing, wait in line to enter a Louis Vuitton shop in Paris,
France. The French began leaving their homes and apartments for the first time
in two months as the country cautiously lifted its lockdown restrictions.
Photo: AP
At an
Hermes store on one of Paris’s swankiest streets, shop assistants greeted
customers through face masks with sanitiser gels and a polite refrain: “May I
refresh your hands?”
As France
began to exit its strict coronavirus lockdown, many of its luxury brands also
opened their doors, giving sanitary protocols a makeover and testing people’s
appetite for splurging after a shutdown that has rocked economies worldwide.
At Louis
Vuitton’s store on Paris’s grand Place Vendome square, which sells everything
from €645 (US$700) cocktail shakers to jewellery worth hundreds of thousands, a
few local clients kept business ticking over.
“It’s a
friend’s birthday and we’re buying her a wallet,” said Paris resident Hajar.
“It’ll be the first time we’ve seen each other in two months.”
At the
Hermes shop on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore, there was even a semblance of
business as usual. A shop assistant discreetly kept count of the number of people
milling around at any one time – around 50 at one point in early afternoon,
across two floors. And one shopper said she had been told to make an
appointment if she wanted to discuss buying a pricey “Kelly” handbag.
“They
always make things difficult at Hermes,” said Blessing Williams, a 23-year-old
model from Nigeria who lives in Paris. She still came away with a pair of
sandals.
But travel
restrictions and the resulting dearth of international tourists will remain a
major drag for months to come on luxury shopping capitals such as Paris, or
Milan, where fashion firms are set to reopen stores on May 18.
Depending
on the brand, foreign tourists usually make up between 35 and 55 per cent of
luxury labels’ revenue in Europe, according to Jefferies analyst Flavio Cereda.
In Germany,
where small stores have been open for three weeks, well-heeled shoppers looking
for luxury are still few and far between, suit maker Hugo Boss said last week.
The plush changing cabins at Vuitton’s Vendome shop, now regularly disinfected,
were a lot less busy than usual, assistants say.
A nearby
Chanel store was quieter than before the crisis too, staff say. Hermes boss
Axel Dumas, mingling with employees at the Faubourg Saint-Honore shop, declined
to comment on how the first few hours of trade had gone.
Despite
signs of recovery in China, the industry’s biggest market, global sales of
luxury goods are expected to slump by up to 50 per cent this year, the
consultancy Bain forecast last week.
For now,
brands are focused on easing into new hygiene routines, including making the
use of face masks compulsory.
At Vuitton
in Paris, owned by the LVMH conglomerate, clothes that are tried on are set
aside to be steamed, and handbags are put in a 48-hour quarantine.
Cleaning
protocols for other items vary, depending on how close they come to people’s
faces or the materials involved. Christian Dior, another LVMH label, and
Chanel, a privately owned group, have also erected Plexiglas shields by the
tills.
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