Le Bon Marche

When I tought about Paris' premium department stores, the names like Printemps and Galeries Lafayette were always on top of my mind. Until I recently had a great shopping experience in Le Bon Marche. This store may not be as popular as the other two, due to its Rive Gauche location (Rive Gauche means Left Bank), the southern bank of the river Seine in Paris, which is a bit far from Paris main tourist attractions.

But, I had great impressions from doing shopping in this place which is worth sharing;)

Well, my first impression about this department store was that there was not so many tourists inside the store (unlike in the other 2 department stores, which were over crowded by tourists doing shopping in rush). Great! Then I noticed that the patrons of Le Bon Marche were mostly the chic Parisien ladies who came to the store for shopping with friends or daughters. This was a rare view if I did shopping in Printemps or Galeries Lafayette (or maybe I had difficulty to identify as the stores were crowded most of the time).

The ground floor focuses on fashion accessories (ehm, bags and bags) and I can easily find in-store boutiques like Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Gucci, Prada, Dior and also other luxury brands like Celine, Chloe, Mulberry, Marc Jacobs, Miu Miu as well as Longchamp, Anya Hindmarch, Vanessa Bruno and many more famous brands. The boutiques like Louis Vuitton or Chanel were almost empty and had no queue!  I checked into Celine and asked about nano luggage in bright colour (or other than black), yet they did not have any *sad*.  In general the store was nicely and elegantly decorated and the display areas were just enough (not overly done) for us to admire or observe beautiful objects of obsession being displayed. Store alleys were spacious and wide enough for us to stroll leasurely without bumping into other customers. Inside was brightly lit and they had beautiful skylight in cosmetics area. Simply said, the store gave us a great shopping atmosphere and ambience. 

My friends and I went to Louis Vuitton and Chanel store without queueing and spent quite some time on these two corners, for enquiring and trying on few bags, wallets and glasses. My friends successfully made transactions in Louis Vuitton and Chanel stores. (Well done, girls!) I observed that the SAs were nice and helpful. Well, this is something that I did not experience during my short visit to Chanel in Printemps and Galeries Lafayette. Maybe this was due to the fact that visitors/customers were not as many as those in Printemps and Galeries Lafayette, hence SA could focus more on their customers being assisted. Well, if I am about to spend more than eur2000 of course I demand the SA give me his/her undivided attention. Hahaha

On first floor, I could find shoes department and I felt like in shoes heaven. Even Chanel has a special shoes corner and carries a wide range of shoes collection. And the other part of first floor is women fashion department and I found Balenciaga, Jil Sander, YSL, Alexander McQueen and more names. I checked into Balenciaga and they carried clothing line mostly and only had a few handbags and SLGs. I also looked for Jil Sander 'market bag', but they did not have it. However I 'almost' took home a deep purple classic hobo bag from Jil Sander which was made from soft leather (including the interior lining). I tried on the bag several times and contemplated for a long time to finally decide that the bag should stay in the store instead of going home with me. And now I am still thinking about it as I could not find any store in my city that carries Jil Sander bag :(    Hmmm, so yes, maybe I have a small regret now for not buying this Jil Sander bag... *sigh*

I also visited its second floor that carries furnitures, linen, home accessories, selected books and stationery. The furniture area boasts chairs, tables and armchairs by some of the world's most famous designers. And I simply looooove its furnitures section just to admire the chairs and tables displayed.  I wish next time I come to Le Bon Marche I can do some furniture shopping, which would be superb (and very unlikely to happen). Hahaha.... lol  Oh, and the stationary area also has a wide array of beautiful leather-bound note books (like Smythson) and stationery like card+envelope set. I admired so much note books from Smythson of Bond Street (a British brand) and had difficulty to find a good reason why I should buy an expensive leather-bound note book. But then I could not find the reasonable justification (because nowadays I wrote and typed note mostly in iPad ), hence I did not buy any.

By the way, I did some shopping in Le Bon Marche for Longchamp bags and was assisted by sweet and super nice SA. Full story has been posted in here.

What I like most about this department store is their tax refund process. They will give us tax refund in cash instantly in their ‘detaxe’ desk. Wow! We still need to get the stamp and mail the tax refund paper. But having the instant cash refund is a very rare experience in a department store (compared to Printemps and Galeries Lafayette). And the detaxe process was very smooth and no queue. We were immediately assisted by one of their representatives upon entering the detaxe service area on third floor.


I conclude that the brands and items carried in this department store has been carefully chosen and curated. Hence it was quite a treat for the eyes to admire the luxury items on display. Definitely Le Bon Marche is worth a visit!


Le Bon Marche
24 Rue de Sevres
75007 Paris
Metro station: Sevres-Babylon


http://www.lebonmarche.com