A silk buyer, a season and a building on Boulevard Haussmann.

Printemps is French for spring, and the name was chosen for that reason. When Jules Jaluzot opened the store in 1865, WWD reported in October 2015, he called it Au Printemps to evoke the renewal of the season. France 24, writing in February 2013, placed the opening on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris and described the store’s towering golden domes. English Wikipedia dates the opening to 3 November 1865, names Jean-Alfred Duclos as Jaluzot’s co-founder, says Jaluzot had previously run the silk department at Au Bon Marché, and says his wife, the actress Augustine Jaluzot, helped finance the opening.

The building grew quickly. Wikipedia records a large expansion in 1874 that added hydraulic lifts, and says the store marked goods with fixed prices and later used window models to show new fashions. It also describes the store handing out bouquets of violets on the day spring began, turning the name into a seasonal ritual.

In 1881 a fire destroyed the building. Wikipedia says the store was rebuilt to designs by the architects Jules and Paul Sédille, and that the figures of the Four Seasons on the facade were sculpted by Henri Chapu. The sculpture puts the store’s name into stone: spring appears alongside summer, autumn and winter on the street front of a company named after one season.

In 1905 Gustave Laguionie took over the running of the business, and Wikipedia says he announced a second building, designed by the architect René Binet, which opened five years later with a glass-domed hall about 42 metres high and an Art Nouveau staircase. His son Pierre Laguionie rebuilt the store after another fire in 1921, and in 1923 an elaborate glass cupola was installed above the main restaurant. Wikipedia says the cupola was restored in 1973 by the grandson of its original designer, using plans kept in the family business’s archives, and that the facade and cupola were registered as historic monuments in 1975.

Pinault, Qatar and a relaunch timed for spring.

Ownership of Printemps has changed several times in recent decades. English Wikipedia says that in 1991 Printemps and its subsidiaries were acquired by François Pinault and merged into Pinault-Printemps-Redoute, the group later renamed Kering. WWD reported in 2015 that the store was sold by that group to a consortium including Italy’s Borletti Group, and that Paolo de Cesare had been chief executive since 2007. On 31 July 2013, Wikipedia says, Divine Investments SA, a Luxembourg-based fund backed by Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani of Qatar, bought Printemps, and WWD confirmed in March 2022 that the fund acquired the retailer in 2013. Divine Investments has owned Printemps since 2013.

The store’s 150th anniversary in 2015 showed how literally it treats its own name. WWD reported that the celebrations began on 20 March, the first day of spring, with the front of the store bathed in what it called the signature Printemps pink and decorated with thousands of artificial flowers, including roses, cherry blossoms and hydrangeas. A mascot named Rose was created by the Japanese artist Hiroshi Yoshii, and the choreographer Philippe Decouflé devised a story about a Printemps Fairy who conjures spring in the middle of winter, told through window displays and a light show on the facade.

Seven years later the store changed its identity. On 15 March 2022, WWD reported that Printemps had unveiled a new logo and brand identity, launched with a national advertising campaign under the tagline “Tout commence au Printemps”, “Everything starts at Printemps”, a play on the name. The redesigned website used a green, white and gold colour scheme and a stylised letter “P”, and the Haussmann flagship hosted a pop-up in its atrium with exclusive products made in the same three colours by partner brands. The facade received a luminous floral design planned to stay in place for nine months, alongside immersive window displays, and a two-day Festival de Printemps was timed to the arrival of spring. The chief executive at the time was Jean-Marc Bellaiche, who had joined in October 2020. In March 2025, Wikipedia says, Printemps opened a store at One Wall Street in New York, with interiors by the designer Laura Gonzalez.

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 season used as a name, a calendar and a colour scheme.

The Printemps identity rests on a single word. Jaluzot chose the French name for spring in 1865 to suggest renewal, and the company has returned to that meaning ever since: in violets handed out at the change of season, in Henri Chapu’s Four Seasons on the rebuilt facade, in a 150th anniversary that began on the first day of spring 2015, and in a 2022 relaunch timed to the same week of the year.

The second element is the Haussmann building. The France 24 description of towering golden domes, the Sédille facade, the cupola restored in 1973 and the monument listing of 1975 give the name a fixed home on Boulevard Haussmann, close to the Paris Opéra. The building also works as a display surface, carrying the pink anniversary dressing of 2015 and the luminous floral design of 2022.

The third element is the 2022 identity itself. As WWD described it, the scheme is built on green, white and gold with a stylised letter P, and the store asked partner brands to make products in those colours for the launch. That approach treats the palette as something that can travel from a website to a facade to a product shelf, while the tagline “Tout commence au Printemps” keeps the play on the season at the centre of the message.

The fourth is continuity through new owners. From the Jaluzot and Laguionie years to Pinault, the Borletti-led consortium and Divine Investments, each owner kept the same name, the same domes and the same link to spring.

For a design guide, Printemps shows how a store can turn the meaning of its own name into a yearly calendar of colours, flowers and window displays. Compare it with Galeries Lafayette, its neighbour on Boulevard Haussmann, and with Harrods in London. For this guide we use spring green, white, cupola gold and blossom pink with a high-contrast serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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