Printemps

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Grand Magasin Printemps on Boulevard Haussmann

For the Leslie Cheung album, see Printemps (album).

Printemps (meaning "spring" in French) is a French department store (or a grand magasin, literally "big store").

The flagship Printemps store is located on Boulevard Haussmann in the IXe arrondissement of Paris along with other famous department stores like Galeries Lafayette.

There are also other Printemps stores in Paris and throughout France. The store has also opened branches outside France, in locations including Andorra, the Ginza shopping district in Tokyo and Jeddah. The store in Seoul which opened in 1988 is closed.

The only North American branch was a franchised location in Denver, Colorado, at the Broadway Plaza Shopping Center, which opened in 1987. It is now closed.

Printemps used to be owned by the PPR group, the parent company of Gucci and FNAC.

[edit] History

Printemps was founded in Paris in 1865 by Jules Jaluzot, in a building designed by Jules Sedille, rebuilt in its current form by Paul Sédille in 1883. Jaluzot was replaced as owner in 1900 by Gustave Laguionie, after the business came close to collapse. The building was then extended along the Boulevard Haussmann by architect Rene Binet in the early twentieth century in an art nouveau style. This building burnt down, and its interior was rebuilt in the 1920s. A remarkable feature of the Haussmann store is an elaborate stained-glass cupola above the main restaurant in the store, installed for the 1923 rebuilding. In 1939, to avoid the risk that it would be destroyed in bombing attacks, the cupola was dismantled and stored at Clichy. It was restored in 1973 by the grandson of its original designer, using plans that had been kept in the archives of the family business. In 1975, the façade and cupola of the building were registered as historical monuments.