The imagining of our Rue des Francs-Bourgeois store in Le Marais began with an enigmatic watercolour sketch by our longstanding design collaborator Valentin Loellmann. The yielding curves of the painting represented the room’s peripheral layout while its flowing pigment evoked the sinuous hand-carved timber that would give the space its other-worldly quality. Inspired by Paris’s oldest planned square, the nearby Place des Vosges, Loellmann focussed on the way visitors might gather and circulate convivially in their exploration of our product range.
Responding to the site’s constraint of a central structural wall—the result of merging two shopfronts—everything is organised in the round. Three imperfect circles define the space: a centrepiece inspired by a civic fountain; a counter and cabinets that direct movement and wrap the room; and a timber ribbon that frames the front window display and streams into the curved ceiling. Sculpted into the wall, intimate bays provide places for contemplation or repose.
