The Parisian department stores appear on the avenues newly opened by Baron Haussmann and their birth is closely linked to the urban, social and industrial reforms of Napoleon III’s Second Empire.
They succeed the small medieval shops located in narrow streets, the haberdasheries of the 17th century (where everything related to clothing, perfumery but also… hardware and music is sold), the frivolity merchants or fashion merchants of the 18th century (who sell clothes, hats and frills) then the novelty stores of the galleries and covered passages of Paris at the end of the 18th century.
The Industrial Revolution brings multiple changes, the key word of which is modernization. Department stores benefit from the rise of a wealthy bourgeoisie who are their primary customers and who generally aspire to pleasure: vacations are born with the railways and concert halls, balls and concerts are born from the erection of a new Parisian urban plan. The Grands Boulevards become the scene of useless and pleasant activities – which is new – and shopping becomes a new bourgeois distraction, like the Opéra Garnier house or the famous cafés, such as the Café de la Paix or the Café Tortoni.
Department stores present themselves as a new space of freedom for bourgeois women whose social life is often limited to family celebrations and the theater. For the first time, Parisian women can look, touch and try on.
To be sure of ensuring the enthusiasm and loyalty of this new, overwhelmingly female clientele, department stores practice advertising, free admission and fixed and displayed prices. The margins are certainly lower than those previously practiced in the narrow shops, but they are compensated by a larger volume (authorized by mechanization and mass production) which makes it possible to make prices attractive. The offer is more abundant, more diversified and the logistics are ensured by the development of the railway, whether it is the transport of stocks or that of products sold by mail order throughout France.
Department stores lay the foundations of the consumption society, as we know it today.
Émile Zola, the committed witness of the Second Empire, cannot ignore this social revolution: he baptizes department stores as “cathedrals of commerce”. To write “Au Bonheur des Dames”, the eleventh volume dedicated to the department stores in the Rougon-Macquart series, he is inspired by Aristide and Marguerite Boucicaut, founders of Le Bon Marché, the first Parisian department store opened in 1852.
Aristide Boucicaut is the model of the entrepreneur of the Second Empire. He lays the foundations of modern commerce with major commercial innovations such as the democratization of fashion, the invention of sales and mail order sales.
Following the model of Le Bon Marché, department stores will spring up all over Paris. The layout is designed in an almost theatrical manner: the use of metal structures makes it possible to house several floors served by majestic staircases in an absolutely grandiose volume. Luxury and the latest technical advances (electricity, elevators, escalators) are omnipresent.
The Grands Magasins du Louvre opens in 1855 (the former Louvre des Antiquaires and the Fondation Cartier today), La Belle Jardinière in 1856 (which no longer exists and was on the Quai de la Mégisserie), Le Printemps and Samaritaine in 1865, and Galeries Lafayette in 1896. The phenomenon is not just Parisian, it is global: Italy (La Rinascente), the United Kingdom (Harrods) and the United States (Macy’s) experience the same phenomenon – to name just a few examples.
Here is Le Printemps.
September 26, 2025
