Paris Department Stores Get Their Own Show at Musée des Arts Décoratifs

The Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris is hosting a major exhibition tracing the birth and evolution of the city's iconic department stores—Printemps (1865), La Samaritaine (1870), and Le Bon Marché (designed with Gustave Eiffel). The show contextualizes these 'cathedrals of commerce' within the artistic and sociological landscape of the Second Empire and Belle Époque, highlighting how they became stages for a new consumer society. It features portraits of the era's fashion-conscious elite, literary references to Émile Zola's 'Au Bonheur des Dames' (which compared the stores to 'Babylonian palaces'), and displays of period fashion (e.g., La Belle Jardinière resort suit, Félix gown), toys (Jumeau dolls, tricycle horses), and richly illustrated sales catalogs that spread Parisian taste to the provinces and abroad. The final galleries examine the role of grands magasins in promoting decorative arts, including objects from Galeries Lafayette's in-house workshop La Maîtrise, led by Maurice Dufrène. The exhibition argues that these emporiums, with their iron-and-glass architecture and theatrical merchandising, effectively replaced churches as sites of collective wonder and desire.