paris

Le Chocolat des Français opens in the Marais

12 October 2026 by Flora

The Lemens & Partners team visited Le Chocolat des Français’s fourth Parisian boutique, which opened two months ago in the Marais.

The space is characterised by colour, with walls perforated from floor to ceiling displaying the chocolate bars as if they were works of graphic art. It creates a world that is consistent with the brand: cheerful and instantly recognisable.

Le Chocolat des Français, founded by Matthieu Escande, Paul-Henri Masson and Vincent Muraire, is a brand built on a bold aesthetic featuring pop-art illustrations, collectable packaging and a visual identity that transforms chocolate into a cultural artefact as much as a gourmet treat.

Here, the brand’s visual identity extends beyond the packaging, permeating the entire space.

Le Chocolat des Français - Retail - Lemens & Partners

At Lemens & Partners, we design and lead bespoke retail tours to help you observe what works elsewhere and build the retail of tomorrow. We also support companies in recruiting the creative profiles capable of bringing these experiences to life.

Retail tour, recruitment, or simply a conversation? Get in touch: contact@lemensandpartners.com

UGG sets up shop at Igor Stravinsky Square, a pop-up with no sales, but plenty of purpose

6 October 2026 by Flora

On 1 and 2 October, UGG set up its Parisian-style kiosk, with no products for sale. And yet, there was a queue of visitors, smiles, photos and gifts to take home.

The ‘Born to Feel’ campaign was displayed in large format on the façade. Inside, there were lifestyle Polaroids, shoe displays and postcards to take away.

Visitors left with branded gifts, a branded can of water, a copy of “Le Monde” co-branded with UGG, a key ring… in exchange for simply signing up to the newsletter via a QR code.

These days, the most astute brands don’t always seek to make an immediate sale. They aim first and foremost to be felt, remembered and associated with a pleasant moment. UGG focuses first and foremost on creating a memory and building a relationship.

Retail tour, recruitment, or simply a conversation? Get in touch: contact@lemensandpartners.com

Hoka Paris, the technology becomes a tool for trust

25 September 2026 by Flora

As part of our retail tours, the Lemens & Partners team visited the Hoka boutique at 14 rue Sainte-Croix de la Bretonnerie in Paris. A store open for two years, and a compelling illustration of how technology can transform a purchase into a moment of confidence.

Technology in the service of certainty

The Safesize technology scans the foot in 3D (length, width, arch height) and generates a precise recommendation in a matter of seconds, which model, which size, which level of comfort. The screen displays the result clearly, Excellent Fit, with a visualisation of the foot’s imprint and a comparison across several models in the range.

This is not a gimmick. It is a direct response to one of the main sources of hesitation in buying sports footwear, doubt about size, width, and fit. In a few seconds, the uncertainty disappears. The customer knows and so they buy with confidence, and come back.

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Human guidance all the way through

Technology does not replace advice, it strengthens it. The sales team uses the scan results to guide, compare and encourage the customer to try. This is far from generic counsel. This is on-the-ground expertise.

Un accompagnement humain jusqu'au bout La technologie ne remplace pas le conseil mais elle le renforce. Le personnel de vente s'appuie sur les résultats du scan pour orienter, comparer, faire essayer. On est loin du conseil généraliste, on est dans l'expertise terrain.

What this tells us about the future of retail

Hoka illustrates something essential about the retail of tomorrow: technology is not there to impress, it is there to reassure. A customer who understands why a product is right for them is a customer who buys, who returns, and who recommends.

Trust is the new loyalty lever. And it is built in the detail of a well-designed experience from the scanning station at the entrance to the conversation at the door on the way out.

Retail tour, recruitment, or simply a conversation? Get in touch: contact@lemensandpartners.com

Diptyque on rue Duphot: the world’s largest flagship as a Parisian apartment

21 September 2026 by Flora

As part of our retail tours, the Lemens & Partners team visited the Diptyque boutique at 7 rue Duphot, in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. At 400 m², it is the largest Diptyque space in the world and one of the finest examples of sensorial retail we have visited.

On the ground floor: Le Comptoir à Eaux

The experience begins at the entrance with an ephemeral space called Le Comptoir à Eaux, available from 12 June to 31 August. Glass and steel shelving displays colourful bottles as many flacons of liquid fragrance. The tiled counter, with its embedded ice compartments, evokes a juice bar as much as a scent laboratory. Fruity, fresh, colourful, the concept is in perfect harmony with the summer season.

This is a trend we observe regularly on our retail tours this year: the vocabulary of the market, of fruits and vegetables brought to life, making its way into high-end brand universes as a way of humanising luxury.

This first chapter also creates a reason to return. A second episode “Les Eaux Holistiques” has already been announced, with no precise date as yet. It is an intelligent editorial choice: generating curiosity, anticipation, and repeat visits.

diptyque-comptoir-eaux-rez-de-chaussee-flagship-paris

Upstairs: La Galerie Héritage

La Galerie Héritage recreates the rooms of a Parisian apartment, living room, dining room, bathroom, reception space, each carrying its own scents, its own works of art, its own objects of curiosity.

In the living room, a marble fireplace in golden tones, framed paintings, candles placed with care between sculptures. In the dining room, a long luminous table beneath industrial chrome steel pendants. In the bathroom, a deep bathtub, an oval mirror suspended by intertwined ropes, a double stone washbasin on which body and bath products are presented as they would be in a real home.

Throughout, the history of the brand weaves itself into the works of art, and every atmosphere has its own products.

diptyque-galerie-heritage-Retail-Tour-Paris

What this tells us about the future of retail

Diptyque is not simply selling candles in a shop. The brand invites its visitors into a gallery that resembles an apartment, built to tell a story and make an entire universe felt. The ephemeral space on the ground floor creates renewal and curiosity. La Galerie Héritage upstairs anchors the brand in its heritage and its savoir-faire.

It is the combination of the ephemeral and the enduring, the seasonal and the timeless, that makes this boutique particularly remarkable.

Designing this kind of space requires profiles capable of thinking simultaneously about scenography, olfactory narrative, interior design and the overall client experience. The kind of talent that Lemens & Partners helps find every day.

At Lemens & Partners, we design and lead bespoke retail tours to help you observe what works elsewhere and build the retail of tomorrow. We also support luxury, fashion, retail and automotive companies in recruiting the creative profiles capable of bringing these experiences to life.

Retail tour, recruitment, or simply a conversation? Get in touch: contact@lemensandpartners.com

Cinéma Paradiso 2026: when brands step onto the cultural stage

9 September 2026 by Flora

From 1 to 4 July 2026, the 6th edition of Cinéma Paradiso took over the Carrousel du Louvre in the open air. As part of our retail tours, the Lemens & Partners team observed how certain brands succeeded in turning a cultural event into a retail activation platform. Three of them caught our attention.

Hinge: a karaoke box

Hinge, the dating app, was present at the festival for the second consecutive year. This year, the brand installed a karaoke booth at the heart of the Louvre courtyard. The concept: step in as two, sing, and leave with a photo taken mid-performance.

Hinge made no pitch about the app, no speech about dating. The brand simply created a situation, light, fun and complicit, in which two people share something together. Single or not, the memory is associated with Hinge.

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Peugeot: the red carpet as an experience

On a red carpet stood the latest Peugeot 408 in black. No brochure, no sales rep, simply a car, and the opportunity to be photographed alongside it, leaving with a printed photo in hand.

Nobody came to buy a Peugeot that evening. But everyone left with an image of themselves next to a desirable object. That is the principle of brand memory: the day that visitor thinks about changing their car, the image will be there.

Limoncè Spritz: Sicily and deckchairs

True to its universe, Limoncè, the Italian lemon liqueur brand and leader of the Limoncello category in Italy since 1994, installed a stand in its own image: lemon trees, yellow and white deckchairs, a resolutely solar and Mediterranean identity. Everything speaks of Sicily, sunshine and summer. The brand makes no attempt to explain its product, it embodies its spirit. At an open-air festival on a July evening, that is exactly what a visitor wants to feel when ordering a Spritz.

limonce-spritz-stand-citronniers-festival

What this tells us about the future of retail

These three brands have little in common and yet they share the same conviction: in a cultural context, direct selling is counter-productive. What works is experience. What stays is emotion.

Major cultural events have become fully-fledged retail activation platforms. For brands that know how to use them, they offer something precious: an available, receptive audience, and a context in which commercial pressure simply disappears.

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.

Satisfy opens its first time boutiques in Paris

7 September 2026 by Flora

As part of our retail tours, the Lemens & Partners team attended the inauguration of Satisfy’s first two boutiques on 4 September 2026, at 47 and 54 rue de Saintonge in the Marais.

Founded in Paris and built on digital, the brand has established itself as a global reference among runners seeking alternative aesthetics. Since 4 September, Satisfy now offers two distinct spaces a few metres apart, each perfectly embodying one of the brand’s two identities.

47 rue de Saintonge: Satisfy Supply

You step into a raw space. On the floor, concrete slabs display the collection’s pieces as if they were exhibition objects. On the walls, a metal grid holds punk vinyl records with Minor Threat, Gorilla Biscuits, Youth of Today, alongside t-shirts and technical equipment. The space was conceived by architecture studio Ciguë alongside Brice Partouche, the brand’s founder and creative director. Notable pieces signed by Jean-Baptiste Durand are also on display.

Satisfy bears no resemblance to a conventional sports store. This is a space at the intersection of trail running, punk and counter-culture. To complete the overall experience, a bespoke ambient fragrance was created specifically for the store.

Pieces are presented in limited quantities, laid on their slabs like works of art, accompanied by sober, precise technical sheets.

54 rue de Saintonge: the Fuel Station

A few metres away, the second space operates as a literal refuelling station. A coffee counter offers drinks selected and described not by flavour, but by effect: “clean stimulation, alertness, focus”, “fat-based energy, endurance, steady energy”. Steel containers allow visitors to refill their water bottles on the spot.

Beside the counter, a fully curated nutrition library: Maurten bars, Pillar magnesium, Oskar cream, Reishi Sun Potion…

This is not a sports grocery. It is a preparation space, designed for those who treat running as a serious practice.

What this tells us about the future of retail

Digital-native brands that choose to establish a physical presence are not simply opening a shop. They are building a place that embodies their culture.

Two spaces, two functions, one identity. It is precisely this coherence between brand universe and physical space that makes this launch remarkable.

Designing this kind of space requires profiles capable of thinking simultaneously about cultural identity, spatial design and product curation. The kind of talent we help find every day.

Retail tour, recruitment, or simply a conversation? Get in touch: contact@lemensandpartners.com

Le Chocolat des Français opens in the Marais

UGG sets up shop at Igor Stravinsky Square, a pop-up with no sales, but plenty of purpose

Hoka Paris, the technology becomes a tool for trust

Technology in the service of certainty

Human guidance all the way through

What this tells us about the future of retail

Diptyque on rue Duphot: the world’s largest flagship as a Parisian apartment

On the ground floor: Le Comptoir à Eaux

Upstairs: La Galerie Héritage

What this tells us about the future of retail

Cinéma Paradiso 2026: when brands step onto the cultural stage

Hinge: a karaoke box

Peugeot: the red carpet as an experience

Limoncè Spritz: Sicily and deckchairs

What this tells us about the future of retail

Satisfy opens its first time boutiques in Paris

47 rue de Saintonge: Satisfy Supply

54 rue de Saintonge: the Fuel Station

What this tells us about the future of retail

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