PARIS SHOPPING 2017/18 THE GUIDE


chic boutiques, high-end chocolate and pastry, vintage and antiques. Start off in Montmartre, a block from the Abbesses Métro station, and descend all the way to Notre- Dame-de-Lorette church.


DEPARTMENT STORES Les grands magasins pack in so much that, though you may suffer crowds (except at Le Bon Marché), you’ll find in a single afternoon what would otherwise take a month. In July, Printemps unveiled the latest spaces in its new ‘Beauty concept store’. Covering three floors, it’s now Paris’s largest beauty area. The home store and fashion departments have been redone in the last five years in a bid for upscale status.


Galeries Lafayette is Paris’s largest department store, with an excellent food hall, women’s shoe department and home store, and more designers per square foot than anywhere else in the capital. If you go during the sales, get there at 8am and wear your helmet and kneepads. Le Bon Marché is an oasis of calm compared with the Haussmannian grandes dames. With a focus on high-end fashion and a refined selection of French, European and American designers, expect cool and sophisticated Left Bank chic. Next door, La Grande Épicerie is Paris’s behemoth gourmet food emporium and wine cellar (with surprisingly good wine prices), and Bon Marché Maison, on the second


and third floors, gathers chic housewares, linens, furniture, luggage and cookware.


DISCOUNT SHOPPING OUTSIDE PARIS Serious shoppers will perhaps forego Paris proper for the prospect of a designer bargain in the suburbs. There are two designer outlets of note; both are well outside the city limits but easy to get to in around 45 minutes on public transport or by shuttle. To the west of Paris, near


Versailles, One Nation is the region’s newest designer outlet mall, with 90 shops on two floors, including Galeries Lafayette’s only outlet store. All items are a guaranteed 30 per cent off retail rates and as much as 70 per cent


off at sales. Shuttles leave every weekday at 10.15am from Opéra (€9.50), or you can take public transport and combine your trip with a visit to Versailles. At La Vallée Village, to the east of Paris, near Disneyland, you’ll find more than just a crazy number of A-list designer shops, including everything from clothes and accessories to housewares and linens, and an art gallery and several cafés. Though you can get there by RER A (a 40-minute ride), a shuttle from 2 rue des Pyramides leaves every day at 1pm (€25). Chauffeur services from the city are available. There is also a shuttle from the Village to Disneyland, where dad and the kids can go and have fun, leaving mum to shop in peace. FT


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