Was it a modern version of Marie Antoinette telling starving beggars demanding bread to eat cake instead? Or a brave attempt to show shoppers and visitors on a dilapidated Champs-Élysées that it was business as usual?
Wrought-iron gates were flung open on what the French call “the most beautiful street in the world”. Outside on the Champs-Élysées, a giant moon of light illuminated the new Galeries Lafayette department store – 6,500 square metres of shopping, eating and browsing.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BvhmH6LHBuU/?utm_source=ig_embed“My family dreamed of opening a store on this famous street, but it was stopped by the war,” said the founder’s descendent and the current Executive Chairman, Philippe Houzé. The family-owned business first opened on rue La Fayette in 1895 before moving to its famous site on the boulevard Haussmann. But now, the space at number 60, most recently occupied by the Virgin Megastore, has had a three-year makeover, transforming into a broad space, almost like a village centre, with a wide staircase on one side and an image of the ‘Eiffel Tower’ straight ahead.
