Bon Marché Today: A Shopper's Promenade

So far, we've followed how Bon Marché grew from a small shop into a department store. Now let's look at it as it is today. Bon Marché is spacious, bright, and beautiful, and it's exciting just to look at.

Even after more than 150 years, Boucicaut still seems to have read our minds and won us over. Today, Bon Marché draws the eye with its decorated escalators, known as the "Cross Staircase." They aren't just eye-catching: they were designed to make moving around easy. The store works like a comfortable promenade, leading customers among beautiful goods, delighting them and encouraging them to buy. As technology has replaced staircases with escalators, Bon Marché has adapted its strategy to match.

Ask around about which department store to visit in Paris, or which is the prettiest, and you'll more often hear Galeries Lafayette or Printemps than Bon Marché. Our guide admits that on their first trip to Paris, they only went to Galeries Lafayette. Had they known this story, they say, they could have looked at the store and understood why it was built this way, rather than stopping at "wow, it's pretty."

In the next chapter, we'll look at the department stores that followed Bon Marché, such as Printemps and Galeries Lafayette, as they were then and as they are now, with a few tips for visitors. Let's start with Galeries Lafayette.