A private bookable bubble at Galeries Lafayette’s new Wellness emporium in Paris.
Monolithic Paris department store Galeries Lafayette has just unveiled a similarly huge 3000m2 ‘Wellness Galerie’ across its entire lower ground floor. Activated in soft launch mode over the summer, it will become fully operational with further additions as of September making it the largest of its ilk in Europe.
“Our aim was to create a holistic concept that was truly unique, the first in the world that unites all the best players in the well-being sphere under the same roof,” says Galeries Lafayette Project Director Odile Boucher. “The world is changing and our clients also. They want, more that ever, to prioritize wellness and to balance mind and body.”
Indeed, the global wellness sector is growing by 10% year on year and is set to reach $7 trillion by 2025.*
The multibrand section of the Galeries Lafayette Wellness Galerie beauty store.
The Wellness Galerie brings together health and beauty treatments and therapies from standout French concerns alongside targeted international beauty, sportswear and athleisure brands.
A wellness concierge station is set up in the lobby with a 14-strong team of advisors to help customers navigate the options. There are also bookable bubbles for private events and a nutritionally balanced café cum juice bar with ingredients from local producers.
In fact, Boucher describes how the ‘feel good’ architecture was conceived as a deliberate break from the rest of the store, in order to help customers switch off from their daily lives.
France and Paris in particular has long been known for its secret addresses — the cult spas and under the radar beauty therapists scattered about the city guarded jealously and traded conspiratorially. Bringing so many under one roof renders the whole process more accessible, she says.
A therapy cabin at Galeries Lafayette new Wellness Galerie floor.
But it’s also the curation of the Wellness Galerie that is so compelling — the fact that Martine de Richeville’s cult body sculpting, Institut Nathalie Duarte’s legendary lymphatic draining techniques and Le Boudoir du Regard bespoke brow clinic sit alongside newcomers like Seasonly and Skinneo with their respective Korean lifting and tech centered focuses for face and body.
NYC nail institution Chillhouse brings a global injection to the lineup and there’s even a bar from cult piercing atelier Djula.
“The choice of partners was fundamental, we wanted the best in each field of expertise and to make sure that they complemented each other,” says Boucher, adding that the team worked closely with French and international wellness consultants to “fully understand the market on a global scale.”
The team refined the offering and customer journey in partnership with the service providers themselves, a process that has been “exciting and enriching”, she continues, adding that they worked hard to ensure a wide range of price points and durations of services for a broad appeal in terms of both pocket and lifestyle.
Cult beauty brand The Ordinary in residence at Galeries Lafayette Wellness Galerie in Paris.
Elsewhere, the multi-brand offering in the beauty store combines counters from established worldwide names like Clinique and Kiehl’s with more recent success stories like The Ordinary, Sunday Riley and Paula’s Choice.
In terms of the sportswear and altheisure store, there’s a similarly geared curation with household names like adidas and The North Face sitting with hyped US yoga labels Alo Yoga and Girlfriend Collective. There’s also a focus on Made in France with environmentally responsible brands like Chlore swimwear and Circle running — prime candidates for global expansion.
The beauty and sportswear stores total some 200 brands and counting between them.
Come September exclusive Paris-based boutique gym La Source will open an outlet in the space offering multi disciplinary personal training and group sessions from yoga to bootcamp.
Expect a satellite outlet from boutique Paris gym La Source when the Galeries Lafayette Wellness … [+] Galerie opens officially in September.
*The Global Wellness Economy : Looking Beyond COVID par le Global Wellness Institute

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