When the pedigreed Printemps—its flagship located on Boulevard Haussmann in Paris since 1865—landed at 1 Wall Street this March, the luxury retailer went out of its way to convince New Yorkers that it was “not a department store.” The more I roamed the corridors of the grand magasin, festooned with brass, terrazzo, brocade curtains, and Italian glass, the more I was convinced its stunt marketing campaign wasn’t lying. On the Saturday afternoon I visited, the place was crowded with tourists throwing back white wine. I counted at least nine different blancs available by the twenty-dollar glass at five in-store restaurants and decided that if Printemps is not a department store, then it must be a shopping- themed bar. The wino magnet, which sprawls some 55,000 square feet across two floors of Ralph Walker’s 1931 limestone office building, bears some resemblance to Le Monsieur, the cocktail lounge that pop-baroque maniac Baz Luhrmann opened in January in the West Village. Both mix art deco and art nouveau, Boom Boom’s excess flirting with the fairy-tale flourishes of Romantasy.
At Printemps, the pièce de résistance is the Hildreth Meière– designed Red Room, which you enter through revolving doors on Wall Street. (The Broadway entrance is much less dramatic.) Conceived as a private banking hall and only now open to the public for the first time, this onslaught of crimson, orange, and gold glass tiles is quintessential deco, with Meière’s mural zigzagging across a breathtakingly vertiginous vaulted ceiling. Elsewhere, the groovy green bathroom, one of the store’s four, is less conspicuous but no less arresting. The marble-and- glass mosaic on its walls and floor is the work of Laura Gonzalez, the Paris-based architectural designer who oversaw the entire revamp. All the spectacle really does seem contrived to prohibit actual shopping: It’s been reported that the clothing inventory carries a very limited range of sizes.
One reason the not-a- department-store may not be so focused on moving product is that Printemps—with its bountiful white wine and architectural gems—has another goal: boosting sluggish condo sales upstairs. Billionaire developer Harry Macklowe (whose most visible contribution to the Manhattan skyline, 432 Park Avenue, is beset with plumbing and mechanical issues, not to mention bad press) bought 1 Wall Street in 2014 for $585 million, with the intention of converting it into condos. He secured a loan from Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani just one year before the former Qatari emir acquired Printemps through an investment fund he backs. As of November 2024, only 113 of 556 units had been sold after more than two years on the market. Will the allure of in-store dining and vintage couture convert fashionistas into residents? J’en doute.
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