Two cousins, a small shop and a street name that became a brand.

Galeries Lafayette began as a small fashion shop on a Paris street corner. Théophile Bader and his cousin Alphonse Kahn opened it at the junction of rue La Fayette and the Chaussée d’Antin, in a former haberdasher’s premises. France 24, in an Agence France-Presse report of 11 February 2025, dates the store’s creation by Bader and Kahn to 1894, the year also given in the history section of English Wikipedia. The name of the business came from the street rather than from either founder, and it has stayed with the company ever since: the address became the brand.

The shop grew by buying the buildings around it. English Wikipedia says the company bought the whole building at 1 rue La Fayette in 1896, and in the following decade acquired the buildings at 38, 40 and 42 Boulevard Haussmann and at 15 rue de la Chaussée d’Antin. That move put the store on Boulevard Haussmann, the broad avenue laid out in the nineteenth century behind the Paris Opéra, and the street name that the flagship still carries in its own title, Galeries Lafayette Paris Haussmann.

Bader then commissioned a building to match the address. Wikipedia credits the architect Georges Chedanne with the major renovations completed in 1907, and his pupil Ferdinand Chanut with the store’s glass and steel dome, which it describes as Neo-Byzantine and about 43 metres high. The dome and the Art Nouveau staircases were finished in 1912, and Wikipedia dates the inauguration ceremony to October of that year. In 1932 the architect Pierre Patou renovated the store in an Art Déco style, so the building that visitors see today layers two periods of Paris design under one roof.

The store also made itself a stage for events. Wikipedia records that the French pilot Jules Védrines landed an aeroplane on the roof in 1919, and that from the early 1920s the store ran an applied-arts workshop, La Maîtrise, under the artistic direction of Maurice Dufrêne, producing furniture, fabrics, carpets, wallpaper and pottery for the home. Bader also acquired production facilities, Wikipedia says, to make clothing under the store’s own label.

Designers, campaigns and a family that still owns the store.

After the Second World War, English Wikipedia says, the store was given a complete makeover, and in the 1950s it hosted large international exhibitions, including one devoted to Italian manufacturing in 1953. From the 1960s it became a place where young designers launched ready-to-wear lines. Wikipedia names Laura, who in 1962 sold her clothes at the store before becoming known as Sonia Rykiel, and says that a designer department opened in 1984 with work by Jean-Paul Gaultier and Thierry Mugler. Between 1980 and 1999 the store ran “Fashion Festivals” to select designs.

Advertising became part of the identity in the same way. From 2001 to 2015, Wikipedia says, the photographer and art director Jean-Paul Goude worked with Galeries Lafayette on its campaigns, with the aim of giving the store a modern image. The store’s own exhibition space, the Galerie des Galeries, holds three to four shows a year on French and international design, and a weekly fashion show is staged for visitors.

The dome is also the centre of the store’s Christmas. Wikipedia says that a Christmas tree suspended under the dome has been hung every year since 1976, and the tree and the festive window displays on Boulevard Haussmann are unveiled each November as part of the city’s seasonal calendar.

Ownership has stayed with the founding family. FashionUnited reported on 29 August 2024 that Motier, the family holding company founded in 2005, owns Galeries Lafayette, and that Ginette Moulin was handing her role at its head to her son-in-law Philippe Houzé, who had chaired Galeries Lafayette since 2005. The same report said Nicolas Houzé, Guillaume Houzé and Arthur Lemoine are great-grandchildren of co-founder Théophile Bader, and that Nicolas Houzé was becoming chairman of the board of Galeries Lafayette. France 24 reported on 11 February 2025 that Ginette Moulin, Bader’s granddaughter, had died, and that she had known all five generations of the family to lead the store on Boulevard Haussmann.

Design and documentation.

A department store is one of the few retail formats where the building itself carries the brand. Many flagships occupy purpose-built premises on major city streets, and their facades, corner towers, clocks and glass domes are designed to be recognised from a distance and photographed from the pavement. Inside, atriums, galleries and grand staircases give the name a physical setting that a logo alone cannot supply, and the building often appears in advertising, on postcards and on the store’s own merchandise.

The shopping bag is the identity that leaves the building. A strong bag uses a single colour, a wordmark or a simple pattern that reads clearly at street level, and stores tend to keep the same scheme for years so that the bag becomes a familiar sight in other parts of the city. Gift boxes, tissue and ribbon usually follow the same palette.

Window displays add a seasonal layer. Many department stores dress their street windows to a theme each season, and the year-end windows are often unveiled at a public event that draws crowds. Spring fashion launches, sale periods, illuminated facades and in-store decorations follow a yearly calendar, so the identity changes on a schedule while the name and the building stay the same.

A street name, a dome and a family line.

The Galeries Lafayette identity starts with an address. The founders did not name the shop after themselves: they took the name of rue La Fayette, the street on which their corner shop stood in 1894, and kept it as the business moved onto Boulevard Haussmann. The plural “Galeries” describes the building as much as the company, a set of galleries arranged around an open centre.

The second element is the dome. Ferdinand Chanut’s glass and steel dome, completed in 1912 over Georges Chedanne’s building, is an image closely attached to the name, and the store has built its seasonal rituals around it. The suspended Christmas tree, hung under the dome every year since 1976 according to Wikipedia, turns the architecture into a yearly display, and the rooftop terrace adds a view of the Paris skyline to the experience of the building.

The third is patronage of design and fashion. The Maîtrise workshop under Maurice Dufrêne in the 1920s, the young designers of the 1960s, the Fashion Festivals of the 1980s and 1990s, the Jean-Paul Goude campaigns of 2001 to 2015 and the Galerie des Galeries exhibitions all present the store as a place that commissions and shows work, not only one that sells it.

The fourth is continuity of ownership. Motier, the family holding company, owns Galeries Lafayette today, and the 2024 handover described by FashionUnited moved leadership to the great-grandchildren of Théophile Bader, more than 130 years after he and Alphonse Kahn opened the shop on rue La Fayette.

For a design guide, Galeries Lafayette shows how a street name, a single architectural landmark and a long family line can carry a department store across generations. Compare it with Printemps, its neighbour on Boulevard Haussmann, and with Harrods in London. For this guide we use Haussmann ink, dome gold, glass blue and Paris stone with a Belle Époque serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Galeries Lafayette’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.