On November 20, at 7pm, French film star Tahar Rahim will switch on the Christmas lights on the Champs-Elysées avenue in Paris – which will stay on for six weeks, until January 2, 2023. The Comité Champs-Elysées – an association of 180 shopkeepers who co-finance the illuminations' €1 million budget alongside the City of Paris and the Sephora beauty retail chain – insists that this glittering spectacle, courtesy of millions of LEDs, will be "modest" and "sober."
The construction sites lining the 2-kilometre route are less discreet. In the run-up to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, this avenue – pounded by 880,000 pedestrians a month – is in disarray. Since September 15, road workers have been breaking up the sidewalks to replace the granite paving stones, brought in from Lanhélin, in Brittany.
Gardeners are tearing up, digging over and replanting the green spaces at the bottom of the avenue. This is all in the name of the €30 million first phase of renovations, intended to beautify the avenue. Fourteen months of work are planned before a second phase, scheduled for after the Olympic Games.
Fashionable facelifts
The noise generated by these construction sites is added to the clanging emanating from behind scaffolding and fencing – because "a new store opens every week" on this avenue, according to Marc-Antoine Jamet, president of the committee, and also the general secretary of luxury conglomerate LVMH.
At the end of October, fashion label The Kooples opened a store in place of Lacoste, another brand owned by Swiss giant Maus Frères. At the end of May, the world's best-known crocodile moved across the street to number 50, the site of the former Gaumont Ambassade cinema, opening its "largest store in the world" – 1,600 square meters. At the end of September, Sandro attained its first address on the Champs-Elysées at number 91 – a site of 300 square meters – expanding its network of stores in Paris to 46.
At the entrance to the Claridge's gallery, owned by insurance company Axa, at number 74, stone specialists are renovating the facade of the building, readying it for Zara to occupy the ground floor. From the end of 2023, the Spanish clothing chain will be operating a 3,000-square-metre store there, replacing the one it currently has at number 92. Higher up, behind a spectacular palisade of mirrors, Saint Laurent – a luxury brand of the Kering group – is renovating number 123. Four floors will be dedicated to its collections, with the store's inauguration scheduled for 2023.
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