Stores

Paris breathes commerce. No other city blends tradition and modernity, luxury and everyday life, art and commerce as seamlessly as the streets of the French capital. The great Parisian department stores - those magnificent ‘cathedrals of consumption’ so vividly described by Émile Zola in his 1883 masterpiece ‘Au Bonheur des Dames’ (The Ladies' Paradise) - still stand today as monuments to a retail revolution that changed the city and influenced the world in the 19th century.

 

But Paris is more than just the glittering palaces on Boulevard Haussmann. Every one of the 20 arrondissements is buzzing with trade: from the hidden ceramics atelier in the 11th arrondissement to Marin Montagut's household goods shop in Rue Madame in the 6th arrondissement, which is particularly popular with Asians - a cabinet full of hand-painted glassware, stationery and Parisian treasures, whose owner of the same name guides us through timeless Paris in his book ‘Hidden Treasures in Paris: The City's Most Beautiful Traditional Shops and Manufactories’. Right up to ‘our’ Épic(erie) on the corner of the Marché Saint-Germain with its culinary range that goes far beyond that of a typical supermarket. 

 

In this chapter, we embark on a journey of discovery through the world of commerce and manufactories in Paris. We follow in Zola's footsteps through the historic Grands Magasins and explore the famous arcades that Walter Benjamin analysed as a microcosm of modern urban life in his 1935 work ‘Das Passagen-Werk’ - from the elegant Galerie Vivienne to the bustling arcade of the Panorama.