$23,000 a metre: Champs Elysees transforms as luxury brands move in

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This was published 11 years ago

$23,000 a metre: Champs Elysees transforms as luxury brands move in

Passers-by walk past the Virgin Megastore on the Champs Elysees avenue.

Passers-by walk past the Virgin Megastore on the Champs Elysees avenue.Credit: AP

The Champs Elysees, high on the list of many Paris visitors, is being transformed as eye-watering rents drive out retailers like British multinational Virgin, which will probably give way to another foreign group that wants to to showcase its products to 300,000 window shoppers per day.

Virgin's Megastore music and book unit, which is known in France as a "culture" retailer, said it will file for insolvency on Wednesday, and is the latest to leave the Champs as clothing chains, luxury goods shops and automobile showrooms take over.

Cinemas, which once dominated facades, have shrunk to a shadow of their former selves, though a couple of prestigious theatres have survived.

At up to 18,000 euros ($A22,400) per square metre, the tree-lined avenue and its broad sidewalks that extend two kilometres from the Arch of Triumph to the Place de la Concorde, was ranked as the third most expensive retail street in the world by Cushman & Wakefield, after Causeway Bay in Hong Kong and New York's Fifth Avenue.

Among the brands that might replace the Virgin Megastore despite rents that leapt by around 30 percent last year, are Apple, the US clothing chain Forever 21, Harrod's, or Volkswagen.

"With 30 million tourist visitors per year, the Champs has become a kind of obligatory site for major brands, which logically want a showcase here," said a spokesperson for the Champs Elysees committee, which groups retailers along the avenue.

Other companies that have set up shop include Abercrombie & Fitch, Banana Republic, Disney, Gap, Guerlain and the chocolate specialist Jeff de Bruges, while jeweller Tiffany is tipped to replace one of the many fast-food outlets next year.

"The Champs are in a full transformation," acknowledged Dominique Giraudier, head of the food-oriented Group Flo, which plans to close its Bistro Romain restaurant.

--- Paris town hall is concerned ---

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According to Cushman and Wakefield, rents on the avenue have been pushed higher by luxury goods groups and major international brands.

Sightseers are constantly photographing the Louis Vuitton store, and there is often a line of people waiting outside to pore over the French fashion house's monogrammed bags and clothing.

Barclays, BNP Paribas, HSBC and Societe Generale banks keep their ATMs stocked so tourists do not run out of pocket money.

"Like the others we are highly sought after" by foreign brands, said Giraudier from Group Flo, and "since rents are soaring ... our business model will not hold out for long against this upscale trend."

A post office that was once a fixture on the avenue is long gone, and music stores like FNAC, which like Virgin is struggling to compete against Internet downloads and electronic goods sales, are likely to follow.

Around 15 cinemas have shut down in the past 25 years, changing the face of an avenue that nonetheless remains a popular throughfare for singles and couples on weekend nights.

But officials at the Paris town hall are concerned that the Champs' image could be affected by a certain "banalisation" due to the massive presence of uniform brands found all around the world.

The Champs Elysees committee contests that view however, and underscores the "diversity of offers -- theatre, clothing, leisure and culinary -- that continue to define the avenue."

The group no doubt agrees with the New York-born French songwriter Joe Dassin who sang in a 1969 hit that took the avenue as its title: "In the sunshine and the rain, at midnight or midday, everything you could want is on the Champs Elysees."

AFP

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