News

The Champs-Élysées: a playground for sport and lifestyle

19 June 2026 by Flora

As part of our retail tours, the Lemens & Partners team observed two retail activations on the Champs-Élysées: PSG Café and the Wilson Tennis Garden pop-up, two sports brands that are building much more than just a product. The Champs-Élysées has always been a showcase. Sport is establishing itself there as a brand culture, a way of life and an experience in its own right.

PSG Café: when a football club becomes a home

Part of the PSG boutique on the Champs-Élysées, the PSG Café offers much more than just a coffee break. Cups emblazoned with the logo, branded glasses, madeleines in the club’s colours, drinks with evocative names (PSG Spritz, PSG Spirit) and a carefully selected Rwanda Women Coffee. To take away or enjoy on the premises, in a sleek, minimalist white space.

It is a branded café, designed for an international audience, catering to tourists as well as supporters. The MyParis loyalty programme extends the experience beyond a one-off visit: discounts, access to PSG TV, a gaming zone and family offers. In this way, the club is building a community, not just a customer base.

PSG no longer just sells shirts. It sells a Parisian lifestyle.

Wilson Tennis Garden: Roland-Garros comes to Galeries Lafayette on the Champs-Élysées

At the entrance to Galeries Lafayette on the Champs-Élysées, Wilson has set up its Tennis Garden. As soon as you enter, the floor transforms into a red clay court. A corridor lined with large black-and-white photographs of legendary tennis players leads to a green dome covered in ivy, at the heart of which the Wilson tennis clothing collection is on display.

This pop-up has been set up to coincide with the French Open, which took place from 24 May to 7 June. Wilson, the tournament’s official equipment supplier since 2020, is capitalising on the tournament’s momentum to establish itself in a new light: no longer simply as an equipment supplier, but as a style brand.

Wilson no longer sells just equipment. It sells the elegance of tennis.

wilson-tennis-garden-galeries-lafayette-photos-joueurs

What this tells us about the future of retail

PSG and Wilson are using sport as a starting point to build a brand universe that extends far beyond the original product.

Whether it’s coffee, fashion, lifestyle or community, sport has become one of the most powerful drivers of experiential retail. And the Champs-Élysées, with its constant flow of international visitors, is the ideal setting to demonstrate this.

Designing these spaces requires creative professionals capable of simultaneously considering brand identity, spatial design and the visitor’s emotional experience. These are the talents that Lemens & Partners helps to find every day.

Retail tours have become essential for tracking trends, innovating and drawing inspiration. Lemens & Partners analyses global retail movements through the lens of your strategic challenges, observing what works elsewhere to help shape the retail of tomorrow.

We design and lead bespoke retail tours with our international experts. The field is an endless source of ideas.

Get in touch to organise your next retail tour.

Etam Summer Club: A Parisian flagship store takes to the seaside

3 June 2026 by Flora

As part of our retail tours, the Lemens & Partners team observed a retail activation at the Etam Haussmann flagship store in Paris.

Visible from dozens of metres away on the street, it’s hard to miss. Etam has transformed its Paris flagship store into a veritable summer retreat with its Summer Club, a kiosk set up overnight, both in the shop window and inside the store.

Blue and white stripes, a customised Fiat 500, a map of the Côte d’Azur stretching from Marseille to Monaco, and a life-size beach hut. You’re not just walking into a shop, you’re setting off for the South.

The Summer Club doesn’t just sell swimwear. It sells the promise of a holiday. And it all begins long before you step inside the shop.

etam-summer-club-cabine-plage-interieur-magasin-retail tour Paris

Photo 2 : etam-summer-club-cabine-plage-interieur-magasin

We design and lead bespoke retail tours with our international experts. The field is an endless source of ideas.

Get in touch to organise your next retail tour.

BONBONBON Bonduelle

26 May 2026 by Flora

How do you reinvent a product that’s already sitting in almost everyone’s cupboard? Bonduelle’s answer, turn it into a pop-up experience that’s colourful, playful, and surprisingly cool. After testing the concept with a first street-side shop in Villeneuve-d’Ascq last year, the brand brought its cheerful green universe to the heart of Paris this spring.

Part grocery shop, part restaurant, part creative experience, the Bonduelle BONBONBON Pop-Up gives visitors a fresh way to look at canned and preserved foods. Styled like a fun little “supermarket,” the space mixes iconic products with newly launched ranges, while showing just how versatile these everyday staples can be.

bonduelle-bonbonbon-restaurant-street-food

And the real surprise? You can actually taste everything on site. The restaurant area serves freshly prepared dishes inspired by street-food culture, transforming humble canned vegetables into colourful, flavour-packed creations that feel anything but ordinary.

It’s a playful reminder that even the most familiar cupboard essentials can still surprise you.

We design and lead bespoke retail tours with our international experts. The field is an endless source of ideas.

Get in touch to organise your next retail tour.

Prada Beauty & The Ordinary at the entrances of Galeries Lafayette

22 May 2026 by Flora

As part of our retail tours, the Lemens & Partners team visited Galeries Lafayette Haussmann during the “Quelles Beautés!” operation. Two pop-ups, two entrances, two radically opposing universes and yet, a remarkably similar message.

Galeries Lafayette Paris Haussmann has inaugurated the largest beauty space in France. In this spirit, the GL launched the Quelles Beautés! operation, running until May 31st 2026. Transforming the store into a creative platform for brands. Two of them were each given an entrance of their own: Prada Beauty and The Ordinary. Two entirely different retail languages, and yet a shared objective.

The Prada Beauty Market

Light wooden crates, fresh fruit, a yellow and white striped awning, springtime market furniture. Prada Beauty chose to make itself accessible in the most literal sense by installing a Spring Market. After a first installation in the 7th arrondissement from 4th to 10th May, the concept moved to Galeries Lafayette Haussmann until May 31st.

The Spring Market humanises the brand, makes it tactile, seasonal, almost familiar. The scenography does what the product alone cannot: it shifts perception.

prada-beauty-spring-market-fruits-galeries-lafayette

The Ordinary Pop-Up

On the other side, The Ordinary plays the opposite hand. Chrome pedestals, oversized packaging, a laboratory atmosphere all to present the new Volufiline 92% + Pal-Isoleucine 1% serum. A brand born online, built on transparency and fair pricing, now giving itself a physical presence.

The scenography makes no attempt to imitate luxury. Instead, it asserts a different form of desirability: that of proven efficacy, framed within a resolutely scientific identity.

the-ordinary-pop-up-podiums-chromes-galeries-lafayette

Prada humanises itself to move closer to the consumer. The Ordinary theatricalises itself to speak to the consumer differently. In both cases, it is the scenography that does the work of perceptual repositioning not the product, not the price.

Designing these spaces requires profiles capable of thinking simultaneously about brand strategy, scenography and the visitor’s emotional experience. Talent at the intersection of several disciplines, and increasingly at the heart of the recruitment missions we lead.

We design and lead bespoke retail tours with our international experts. The field is an endless source of ideas.

Get in touch to organise your next retail tour.

Milan Design Week 2026: the Lemens & Partners perspective

13 May 2026 by Flora

From 21 to 26 April 2026, the Milan Design Week took over the entire city. The Lemens & Partners team travelled there to spot emerging talent and decode the major creative trends of the year.

Across this edition from Samsung to Geely, Moooi, Lexus and Louis Vuitton, one thread runs through everything, the human being, placed not as a passive user, but as an experience in its own right. And behind each of these installations, creative teams who have succeeded in translating a vision into something tangible, emotional, and unforgettable.

«Design is an act of love » by Samsung

The South Korean company chose this year to place the human being at the heart of its technology, a bold stance in a context of rapidly expanding artificial intelligence. Samsung presented over 120 products across 36 categories, all articulated around the same conviction: design as an act of love. It is a creative direction fully owned, one that requires profiles capable of reconciling technology and emotion. A rare skill, and one that is increasingly sought after.

In an interview with Designwanted, Mauro Porcini, Head of Design at Samsung, stated that a genuine love of people and a culture of care are the true drivers of creation and that companies placing the human being at their centre build lasting value capable of standing the test of time.

« Anima Mundi. A Visionary Impulse » by Geely

For its first participation in the Milan Design Week, the Chinese automotive group made a striking entrance, reinforcing its strategy to establish itself on the European market. Only recently, Geely inaugurated its strategic creative hub in Milan, dedicated to automotive design. Here too, the human being is placed at the centre, translated through sensorial experience, and a vision of humanity in harmony with its surroundings.

The title chosen is resolutely philosophical: Anima Mundi a reference to the Platonic notion of the world soul, the idea that every body is animated by a soul. Geely does not conceive of mobility as a journey from A to B, but as a harmony between human beings and their environment. An innovation that is as much strategic as it is experiential.

Lemens & Partners Milan Design Week Geely

« 25 and Promising » by Moooi at Superstudio

Dutch brand Moooi celebrated its 25th anniversary at this year’s Milan Design Week, installed within Superstudio. Rather than looking back, the brand chose to affirm its vision for the years ahead celebrating continuity through iconic pieces such as the Peaks modular sofa by Swiss designer Yves Béhar, alongside the Future Fossils rugs by Kilian Vos, where craftsmanship and technology meet through generative CGI. An elegant reminder that innovation does not replace savoir-faire: it extends it.

«Space » by Lexus at Superstudio

Lexus unveiled an immersive 360-degree installation that redefines the boundaries between automotive and spatial design. Visitors were immersed in a futuristic universe where mobility is no longer a destination to be reached, but an experience to be lived. Behind the installation, creative teams who envisioned tomorrow’s mobility not as a vehicle, but as an inhabited space precisely the kind of vision that automotive manufacturers are seeking in their creative recruitment today.

lexus-space-installation-milan-design-week

« Objets Nomades » by Louis Vuitton

The great French house paid tribute to Pierre Legrain, decorator, bookbinder, illustrator and cabinetmaker, by reissuing his first piece of furniture. Around this heritage, Louis Vuitton deployed sweeping artistic installations from its Objets Nomades collection, at the intersection of design, craftsmanship and the contemporary.

Among the most striking pieces: the Baby-foot and the Balanço Cocoon, both signed by Estudio Campana, the Brazilian studio, in collaboration with artist Géraldine Gonzalez. Louis Vuitton has a long-standing habit of bringing together a vast network of renowned international designers a reminder that creativity, in the great houses, is a strategic investment as much as an artistic one.

The Milan Design Week 2026 confirms a trend we observe consistently in our work: the most desirable companies are those that treat design as a conviction, not a variable to be adjusted. Whether a Chinese automotive group making its European debut or a century-old French house, design remains the universal language of differentiation.

And to speak it fluently, you need the right talent.

At Lemens & Partners, we have been supporting companies in the luxury, fashion, retail, and automotive sectors for over 20 years in identifying and recruiting their creative talent.

We know these profiles inside out. We build long-term, trust-based relationships with them, and we understand how to identify the individual who will truly make a difference within your organization.

If you are considering a hire now or in the coming months, we would be delighted to discuss it with you.

→ contact@lemensandpartners.com

Massimo Dutti in Paris: a pop-up as a way of life

24 April 2026 by Flora

From 17 to 27 April 2026, Spanish brand Massimo Dutti opened an ephemeral pop-up at 7 rue Froissart, in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris. A space visited by the Lemens & Partners team as part of our retail tours.

Far more than a boutique

This is not a conventional ready-to-wear pop-up. It is a living space, considered in every detail, where fashion, design, a bookshop and a café coexist naturally.

The Limited Edition collection, an embodiment of Quiet Luxury, unfolds within a calm and refined environment. The garments, predominantly in shades of white and beige, echo the Pantone Colour of the Year 11-4201 Cloud Dancer. A visual coherence that is anything but accidental.

massimo-dutti-popup-mobilier-design-galerie

A space designed as a gallery

Throughout the visit, the eye is drawn to design objects and furniture carefully selected from the Jacques Lacoste and Patrick Seguin galleries. Pieces that speak just as eloquently as the clothes themselves.

A library space, created in collaboration with the Yvon Lambert bookshop, punctuates the journey with art and architecture titles. A discreet café corner completes the picture, in partnership with Café Nuances, known for their matcha and their four Parisian addresses.

The floral compositions by designer Nina Charles provide the final touch: something living, something sensorial, something organic within a very considered space.

The privilege of the ephemeral

What makes this pop-up so effective is the feeling it creates in the visitor. The sense of being somewhere accessible only for a matter of days, offering pieces that are near impossible to find elsewhere. A limited product, in a limited-time setting, it is an equation that generates desire naturally.

What this tells us about the future of retail

This pop-up illustrates a trend we observe increasingly on our retail tours: brands seeking to move upmarket are no longer doing so solely through price or product, but through the environment they build around them. Choosing one’s partners, a bookshop, a gallery, a coffee roaster, a floral designer, is itself an act of positioning.

To conceive this kind of experience, you need creative profiles capable of thinking well beyond the garment. Art directors, scenographers, retail managers with a genuine culture of design. The kind of talent we help find every day.

We design and lead bespoke retail tours with our international experts. The field is an endless source of ideas.

Get in touch to organise your next retail tour.

The Champs-Élysées: a playground for sport and lifestyle

PSG Café: when a football club becomes a home

Wilson Tennis Garden: Roland-Garros comes to Galeries Lafayette on the Champs-Élysées

Etam Summer Club: A Parisian flagship store takes to the seaside

BONBONBON Bonduelle

Milan Design Week 2026: the Lemens & Partners perspective

Massimo Dutti in Paris: a pop-up as a way of life

Contact

Follow us