Bring together retail and creation
The Galeries Lafayette group has made access to creation a core value of its identity. The whole of its actions in favor of creation is based on values such as democratization, participation and innovation.
Artistic actions
The timeless, vibrant stores of the Galeries Lafayette group are a remarkable mix of different periods and styles. For more than a hundred years they have evolved and adapted to changing trends and lifestyles, at the same time forging close links with the creative artists of their time.
Art and culture at the Galeries Lafayette
Éloge de la Contemplation, Philippe Ramette, 2014
The Galeries Lafayette Paris Haussmann store regularly invites artists and designers to invest its iconic Coupole. Works of art and new installations are accessible to the general public and the department store becomes a place for shopping as well as for enjoyment.
Artistic commissions
Located in city centres, Galeries Lafayette are committed to taking part in the public spaces and take part in artist encounters. Creators of all kinds are regularly invited to invest store fronts, store spaces and the store animation program.
Windows by ToiletPaper, 2016
Heritage
Galeries Lafayette Paris Haussmann is an architectural jewel contributing to the Parisian heritage, especially with its legendary Coupole dating back to 1912. Details of the architecture invite each one of us to take a fresh look at the brand’s history. Guided tours are organized every Saturday and Sunday in the department store.
In-store exhibitions
Savoir Faire Savoir, Galerie des Galeries, Galeries Lafayette , Paris 2019 © Ivan Mathie
About
For twenty years, Galeries Lafayette has dedicated 300 sq.m. to the creation of a specific cultural space within their flagship on Boulevard Haussmann in Paris: the “Galerie des Galeries”, a place of words and ideas dedicated to creation in all its forms.
Since 2021, Galeries Lafayette invites visitors to discover the best of contemporary creation throughout the store.
Antidote 7, Galerie des Galeries, Galeries Lafayette, Paris 2011 © Thibaut Voisin
Alex Prager, Galerie des Galeries, Galeries Lafayette, (c) Thibaut Voisin, 2015
Patronage
Since 2010, the Galeries Lafayette group supports museums and cultural institutions with its Patronage Department which selects, discovers and brings young creators to the public’s attention.
Championing artists and the creative arts for 130 years
NURTURING, SUSTAINABLE FASHION
Galeries Lafayette made creativity and bringing fashion within reach a corepart of its identity when it opened its own garment shops in the early 20th century. The first to appoint a fashion director in France, Galeries Lafayette soon demonstrated its ability to bring together young designers and garment makers, opting clearly to open up the lines of communication between art and industry. Galeries Lafayette has successfully partnered with a host of new talents as well as major fashion names, including Jean Patou, Madeleine Vionnet, Gabrielle Chanel, Sonia Rykiel, Cacharel, Azzedine Alaïa, the young winners of the ANDAM fashion and Villa Noailles Fashion Parade awards.
Galeries Lafayette offers a special endowment fund to the international fashion, photography and fashion accessories festival in Hyères, by inviting a young designer to sign an exclusive capsule collection with the brand.
ANDAM Fashion Award jury, chaired by Guillaume Houzé since 2018
Capsule collection Marine Serre x Galeries Lafayette, 2018
Bleu de costume, an artwork by Jean-Luc Moulène in collaboration with Objet Sens Fonction, for the 160th anniversary of BHV/MARAIS, 2016
Quasi Pagan Modern, Haegue Yang, 2016
SUPPORTING EMERGING TALENT IN THE CONTEMPORARY ARTS, the Applied arts and design
Today, supporting emerging talent is fostering creation in all its forms. The Galeries Lafayette group supports these young creators throughout all the process: it produces their work, promotes their access to the art market, provides them with a showcase and bring them to public attention. The Group stands behind contemporary creation while supporting the art and design world’s future direction.
main institutions supported by the Galeries Lafayette group
Since 2010, the Group has sponsored ANDAM, an award to nurture young designers and bolster Paris’s status as a fashion capital. The winner of the First Collection Award receives personal support and mentoring and a contract to sell his or her collection in Galeries Lafayette stores.
Since 2011, the Group has been a valued partner of the Centre Pompidou, the French museum of modern art in Paris, supporting projects that facilitate access to contemporary art in its most groundbreaking forms.
The Group supports Fonds Pour Paris since 2015 in its restoration project for the fountains on the rond-Point des Champs-Elysées designed by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, unveiled in March 2019.
Since 2012, the Group has supported Les Arts Décoratifs, the preeminent French institution of applied arts that fosters relationships between the arts and manufacturers.
As a patron of Paris’s Musée d’Art Moderne museum of modern art since 2011, the Group supports exhibitions developed by ARC, the museum’s contemporary art department.
The Galeries Lafayette group actively supports regional French collections of contemporary art, known as FRACs. Since 2014, the Group has funded special Thursday events at Musée des Abattoirs as part of a local FRAC cultural programme.
Corporate patron of Villa Noailles and its annual cultural events since 2007, the Galeries Lafayette group pays special attention to talented artists at the International Festival of Fashion and Photography in Hyères, France. Since 2013, each year’s finalist has worked with the Galeries Lafayette brand to create capsule collections.
As a space for creating, shaping and exhibiting Art, the Foundation aims to support contemporary artists and creatiom, from the visual arts to fashion, design and the performing arts.
About
Created in October 2013, Lafayette Anticipations - Galeries Lafayette Corporate Foundation opened its doors in March 2018 in the heart of the Marais district of Paris, chaired by Guillaume Houzé, Image and Communication Director, Galeries Lafayette Group.
For Ginette Moulin, Honorary Chairwoman, this institution celebrates the singular ability of all creative people to anticipate and help drive social change. The Foundation is a space for creating, shaping and exhibiting the most contemporary forms of expression, from the visual arts to fashion, design and the performing arts.
A public space for people to gather, converse and share ideas, the Galeries Lafayette Corporate Foundation occupies a 19th-century building renovated by the OMA architectural firm founded by Rem Koolhaas. For this first Paris project, the world-renowned firm has been assisted with property development by Citynove, which manages and renovates Galeries Lafayette group’s real estate assets.
Access to Lafayette Anticipations is free for all.
9
rue du Plâtre, in the heart of the Marais
2,500sq.m.
dedicated to creation
€20M
of five-year budget
“We created the Galeries Lafayette Corporate Foundation as a tool for advancing the conversation in our era and participating in the major social debates through the applied and visual arts. The Foundation will be more than a gallery. It will be a place to gather and converse, to engage on a wide range of topics and issues. It will attempt to sharpen our perception of our era, using a forward-focused approach similar to the one that infuses our core department store business. Fashion and other designers, visual artists and performers will contrast their practices and thinking with those of the broadest possible cross-section of the public.”
Life at the Foundation
Café-Restaurant Mātēr
Located in the heart of the Fondation, Mātēr café and restaurant is open all day and evening, offering delightful bites and drinks for any time of the day.
Visitors can take a break after a visit of the exhibition, surrounded by works of artists of the moment, in the exceptional architecture designed by Rem Koolhaas.
In the evening, after the exhibition closes, the restaurant comes alive with creative and refined sharing plates, natural wines and a cutting edge playlist.
AN ATELIER IN DOWNTOWN PARIS
Lafayette Anticipations has set aside several of its areas, spread around the basement and all the way up to the third story, for production work. The various machines create the works, objects and backdrops that the public will enjoy in the rest of the areas. Lafayette Anticipations’ production team handles everything from woodworking to metalworking and on to 3D printing and laser engraving, CNC milling and marking, linocutting and silkscreen printing, latex, Riso and Xerox printing, grooving, assembly, paper cutting, and sewn, stitched and heat-sealed binding. And all that is part of what puts Lafayette Anticipations in a class of its own.
The Fondation is also preventing waste at source, upcycling it, using more eco-materials and clearly shifting towards local sourcing in its drive for more sustainable production.
Lastly, the Fondation kicked off an annual program to support production in 2020. Five artists from a variety of fields - visual arts, music, design and publishing - will each spend two months in residence at the ateliers in 2021.
LA BOUTIQUE
The Lafayette Anticipations Boutique is an address designed for art, design, beautiful books and surprises' lovers.
Conceived as a gold-mine where visitors can discover nuggets, they will find the artists' editions of Lafayette Anticipations, a selection of books and records echoing the programme and current ideas, as well as a singular choice of art and design objects.
From the essential works of the theoretician and architect Rem Koolhaas to the writings of the American novelist Joan Didion, as well as new publications from Audimat, La Boutique propose a selection of classics and unforgettable new works, as well as books selected for the exhibition.