Les vitrines de Noël du Printemps

The holiday season is rapidly approaching, and Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas if the Parisian department stores didn’t redress their windows in the festive spirit. Today we are offering you the chance to discover the ideas behind the decorations with a behind the scenes look at the Hausmann Printemps’ window displays.

The famous window displays will be unveiled on Thursday by the superb Natalia Vodianova and Paolo de Cesare, the president of Printemps. Nevertheless, last Thursday a handful of lucky people (us included) were able to get an early look at the displays, which were in the last stages of preparation.

Having dragged myself out of bed a little late with bags under my eyes, I felt as though I was passing quickly from one dream to another. This year’s theme is Russia, the central themes being fairytales and Slavonic folklore. And so, in red, pink and black, Matryoshka dolls and elk take pride of place amongst the mythical bears and peacocks designed by the illustrator Klaus Haapaniemi (see the illustration at the end of the article).

For five years Printemps has worked with designers and fashion houses to invent Christmas displays that are both festive and fashionable, so as to please young and old alike. This year, it’s not one fashion house but two, and none other than Chanel and Dior Couture!

Karl Lagerfeld has drawn his inspiration from his Paris-Moscow collection, whilst John Galliano has reworked old designs and fabrics with Victoire de Castellane.

This work has produced two mascots, Princess Nadejda and Duke Dimitri, who can be seen in our photos and whose clothes come from the same studios as the haute couture dresses.

We also met Jean-Claude Dehix, the latest craftsman to get the job of articulating the joints on the figures, which are puppets and not robots, let’s not forget. What better job than to fill people with wonder during the festive season!

For the more pragmatic amongst you, here are some statistics about Christmas at Printemps: 120 fir trees at 2.3 metres, 10 fir trees at 1.15 metres, 5640 baubles, 3950 metres of ribbon, 930 metres of branches, 130 sets of fairy lights, 62500 LEDs…

Opens tomorrow at 19:30!

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