4 Best Shopping in Paris, France

A retail institution, Au Printemps is made up of three major stores: Printemps Maison (with home furnishings on four refurbished floors), Printemps Homme (featuring six levels of menswear plus two levels for the gourmet shopping area, Printemps du Goût, which opened in January 2018), and fashion-focused Printemps Mode (which has everything à la mode, from couture to teen trends). While in the Printemps Mode building, be sure to check out the newly enlarged beauty area—the largest in Paris—with the Nuxe spa, hair salons, and seemingly every beauty product known to woman under one roof. The luxurious Printemps du Louvre—in the Carrousel du Louvre, at the underground entrance to the museum, across from I.M. Pei's inverted pyramid—carries fine leather goods, accessories, watches, and beauty products; fittingly, it also hosts revolving art exhibitions.

This mammoth department store is one of those places that you wander into unawares, leaving hours later a poorer and humbler person. Inside its flagship building at 40 boulevard Haussmann, a Belle Époque stained-glass dome caps the world's largest perfumery. The store bulges with thousands of designers, and 25-minute fashion shows are held Friday at 3 pm in the upstairs café to showcase their wares (reservations are a must: email [email protected]; admission €12). Another big draw is the comestibles department, stocked with everything from herbed goat cheese to Iranian caviar. Just across the street at 35 boulevard Haussmann is Galeries Lafayette Maison, which focuses on goods for the fashionable home. The Montparnasse branch is a pale shadow of the Boulevard Haussmann behemoths.

This museum and crystal store was once the home of Marie-Laure de Noailles, known as the Countess of Bizarre. Philippe Starck revamped the space with his signature cleverness—yes, that's a chandelier floating in an aquarium and, yes, that crystal arm sprouting from the wall alludes to Jean Cocteau (a friend of Noailles). Follow the red carpet to the jewelry room, where crystal baubles hang from bronze figurines, and to the immense table stacked with crystal items for the home, and don't miss the drop-dead gorgeous Crystal Room restaurant, recently reopened after a colorful redesign by interiors star Jacques Grange and a new menu by two-star chef Guy Martin of Le Grand Véfour.

This sentimental Rive Gauche favorite is named after the bookstore whose American owner, Sylvia Beach, first published James Joyce's Ulysses. Nowadays it specializes in expat literature. Although the eccentric and beloved owner, George Whitman, passed away in 2011, his daughter Sylvia has taken up the torch and made huge changes, including opening an on-site café. You can still count on a couple of characters lurking in the stacks, a sometimes spacey staff, the latest titles from British presses, and hidden secondhand treasures in the odd corners and crannies. Check the website for readings and workshops throughout the week.