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retailtour

Hoka Paris, the technology becomes a tool for trust

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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.
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.
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.

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

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

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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.

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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.

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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

Extreme Cashmere in Amsterdam: a shop that refuses to follow the rules

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As part of our retail tours, the Lemens & Partners team visited the Extreme Cashmere boutique in Amsterdam. A space worth dwelling on because it questions just about everything one expects from a point of sale.

From the moment you step inside, something does not match expectations. No visible clothes. No displayed prices. No screen. Instead: a bright orange carpet rising up the walls, a long brushed aluminium counter, and a sink (yes, a sink) sitting at the centre of the space as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

A space that owns itself as a place to live

The sink is not decorative. It serves a purpose for events hosted in the boutique, for washing pieces, for laying textiles out on the floor. Extreme Cashmere has designed its space the way one designs a home: functional, alive, inhabited. The hand-blown coloured glass pendants hanging from the ceiling white, blue, green, yellow add a touch of precious craftsmanship to a deliberately raw setting. The space expresses the same quality one finds in the garments themselves.

It is only at the back of the shop that the clothes finally appear a floor-to-ceiling library filled with carefully folded cashmere pieces. The effect is immediate, with no price tags to interrupt the contemplation.

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A brand that refuses the cycles of fashion

Extreme Cashmere does not follow traditional seasons. No spring-summer collection, no autumn-winter collection. The brand produces timeless cashmere pieces, available continuously, designed to last. And its retail space is the living expression of that philosophy.

The absence of prices is not an oversight, it is a choice. You come here to touch, to feel, to take the time for a conversation with the sales team. The client relationship is considered, personalised, almost bespoke. This is far from transactional retail. This is relational retail.

Une marque qui refuse les cycles de la mode Extreme Cashmere ne suit pas les saisons traditionnelles. Pas de collection printemps-été, pas de collection automne-hiver. La marque produit des pièces en cachemire intemporelles, disponibles en continu, pensées pour durer. Et son espace de vente est à l'image de cette philosophie. L'absence de prix n'est pas un oubli mais un choix. On entre ici pour toucher, pour ressentir, pour prendre le temps d'une conversation avec le personnel de vente. Le contact client est travaillé, personnalisé, presque sur-mesure. On est loin du retail transactionnel. On est dans le retail de relation.
Une marque qui refuse les cycles de la mode Extreme Cashmere ne suit pas les saisons traditionnelles. Pas de collection printemps-été, pas de collection automne-hiver. La marque produit des pièces en cachemire intemporelles, disponibles en continu, pensées pour durer. Et son espace de vente est à l'image de cette philosophie. L'absence de prix n'est pas un oubli mais un choix. On entre ici pour toucher, pour ressentir, pour prendre le temps d'une conversation avec le personnel de vente. Le contact client est travaillé, personnalisé, presque sur-mesure. On est loin du retail transactionnel. On est dans le retail de relation.
Une marque qui refuse les cycles de la mode Extreme Cashmere ne suit pas les saisons traditionnelles. Pas de collection printemps-été, pas de collection automne-hiver. La marque produit des pièces en cachemire intemporelles, disponibles en continu, pensées pour durer. Et son espace de vente est à l'image de cette philosophie. L'absence de prix n'est pas un oubli mais un choix. On entre ici pour toucher, pour ressentir, pour prendre le temps d'une conversation avec le personnel de vente. Le contact client est travaillé, personnalisé, presque sur-mesure. On est loin du retail transactionnel. On est dans le retail de relation.

What this tells us about the future of retail

The most desirable brands are sometimes those with the courage to resemble no one else. No dazzling window display, no expected luxury codes simply a strong point of view, carried through to the smallest detail.

In a sector where so many boutiques look alike, the originality of a space becomes a brand argument in itself.

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.

Nespresso in Amsterdam: when an iced coffee becomes a brand experience

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As part of our retail tours, the Lemens & Partners team visited the Nespresso ephemeral pop-up installed at the headquarters of fintech Adyen, in the heart of Amsterdam.

A Vertuo World scenography

To understand this pop-up, one must first understand what inspired it. In April 2026, Nespresso launched Vertuo World, described by the brand as the biggest campaign in its 40-year history with Dua Lipa as its new global ambassador. A major strategic repositioning: after two decades with George Clooney, Nespresso chose one of the most culturally influential icons of her generation to target a younger audience, more attuned to cold coffee, digital consumption and a contemporary aesthetic.

The Amsterdam pop-up is the physical translation of that campaign. Sky-blue tiling, pink arches, fuchsia inflatable furniture, blocks of transparent resin evoking giant ice cubes, the entire visual universe of Vertuo World comes to life in the space.

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Coffee served as a product demonstration

The coffee offered on-site is not a commercial gesture. It is a product demonstration disguised as a moment of conviviality. The visitor experiments, discovers iced coffee, and leaves with a sensory impression of the brand far more powerful than any advertising campaign could create alone. The pop-up extends the campaign to where advertising stops in taste, and in memory.

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What this tells us about the future of retail

Global campaigns are no longer deployed solely on screens. They seek to exist physically to be lived rather than merely seen.

Nespresso is not simply selling a coffee. It is selling a coherent universe, from the advertising poster to the cup served on the spot. It is this continuity between the global campaign and its retail incarnation that makes the experience truly memorable.

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.

Kayali Café at Sephora Champs-Élysées: the gourmand retail experience speaking to Gen Z

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As part of our retail tours, the Lemens & Partners team visited the Kayali Café pop-up at Sephora Champs-Élysées, open until 25 August. Founded in 2018 by Mona Kattan, whose name translates as “my imagination” in Arabic.

A universe designed to seduce

Everything is pink. A giant Boujee Kitty Caramel Milk flacon greets the visitor at the entrance. On the wall, the message: “Awaken your imagination.” The space is immediately recognisable, coherent and instagrammable.

At the heart of the concept are the Paires Gourmandes, Gourmand Pairings. Each fragrance is associated with a pastry presented under a glass cloche: fruit macaron, cherry black forest, vanilla tarte tatin, fresh fruit tart. This is not a conventional fragrance counter, it is an imaginary pâtisserie, designed to seduce the nose as much as the eye.

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Why it works with Gen Z

Kayali has built its identity around “layering”, the art of combining several fragrances to create your own signature scent. It is an invitation to co-create rather than simply purchase. And that is precisely where the brand resonates with Gen Z, the product becomes a tool for personal expression, not an imposed reference.

Kayali also speaks the right language. Fragrances are not classified by traditional olfactory families, but by moods, gourmand, fresh, cosy, fruity. An intuitive and immediate way to choose your scent, no expertise required.

The result: an olfactory playground in an entirely pink space, instagrammable by nature, where visitors come as much for the experience as for the product.

What this tells us about the future of retail

The brands that perform with Gen Z are not necessarily those that do the most but those that speak to them best. They are the ones that create a space in which the visitor feels understood, welcomed, and free to build their own experience.

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

The Champs-Élysées: a playground for sport and lifestyle

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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.

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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.

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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.