The very first Parisian department store! It is enough to push the door of this case refined to understand why it inspired all the others. Of real "maîtres d'hôtel" ready to fulfill the slightest of the wishes, provided you with stylists, valets' service: Le Bon Marché is a sign resolutely high-end. In this elegant and sophisticated store, luxury items are accurately tidied up in various thematic spaces. " le Théâtre de la Beauté " for bodycare, " l’Appartement de Mode " for the ready-to-wear clothing, the shoes and the accessories, " La Grande Epicerie de Paris " a real luxury supermarket of the dishes and the delicacies of the whole world.
The first store Au Bon Marché was established in 1838 by the brothers Pauls and Justin Videau under the shape of a big shop of notions also selling sheets, mattress and umbrellas. They join in 1852 with Aristide and Marguerite Boucicaut which dash into the transformation of the store, developing then the new concept of department store with a vast wide and deep assortment, prices fixed to low margin and indicated on a label, a direct access, the principle of the satisfied or your money back and a direction of the goods in a sales area. In 1863, Boucicaut acquires the partnership shares of the brothers Videau, who were frightened by the commercial ideas of the couple. In 1869, thanks to their success, Boucicaut dashes into the enlargement of the store. To attract the feminine clientele, Boucicaut creates the first ladies' room, a lounge of reading for her husbands the time when they made their purchases. After the wives, he targets the mothers by distributing drinks, red balls for their children and also organizes walks with hogback. The middle-class persons to escape from the lodging house and spend of numerous hours in the store to try products. Some of them get into debt or become kleptomaniacs. The respectability of the store being questioned, Aristide Boucicaut makes commit sellers whom he makes live in the superior floors of the store. With a paternalistic management inspired by the Christian socialism of Lamennais, Aristide Boucicaut creates in particular for his employees a contingency fund and a pension fund, a free dining hall, a weekly paid day off. In 1910, on Mrs Boucicaut's initiative, to accommodate his customers nearby, is created the Lutetia hotel which remains the only luxury hotel of the left bank. The group Bernard Arnault's LVMH acquires Le Bon Marché in 1984 to make the department store of the luxury of the left bank.
24 Rue de Sèvres 75007 Paris