Printemps

We all know Paris has a reputation as a shopping paradise, and Printemps is one of the places that built that reputation from the ground up.

When Jules Jaluzot opened his store here in 1865, the neighborhood around Gare Saint-Lazare was considered dirty, noisy, and frankly a bit rough. But Jaluzot, a former silk department head at Au Bon Marché, saw something others missed: great train connections and crowds of people passing through every single day. He named the place "Printemps," spring, as a symbol of renewal. His wife Augustine co-founded it with him, and together they introduced fixed pricing and elaborate window displays that stopped Parisians dead in their tracks.

A fire tore through the building in 1881, but Printemps came back stronger. By 1883 it became the first public building in Paris to run entirely on electric lighting, just four years after Edison invented the light bulb. The glowing shop windows became such a spectacle that people traveled across the city just to stare at them from the street.

Gustave Laguionie later rebuilt and expanded the store into the landmark you see today, completed in 1911. Head up to the 7th floor and look up at the glass dome. It's the kind of ceiling that makes you forget you came in to buy shoes.