Christmas in Paris: Window Shopping

Paris is one of the most incredible shopping cities in the world. Its grand avenues are lined with designer clothing and jewellery boutiques, luxury department stores and delectable pâtisseries. And at this time of year, their window displays become sophisticated and whimsical holiday vignettes. Given this, window shopping is a wonderful way to pass some time when spending Christmas in Paris.

Cartier Red

I found many of my favourite windows in Place Vendôme, home of the Ritz Hotel, as well as many of the luxury jewellers. Cartier was a particular favourite of mine. Their windows provided delightful, miniature, Parisian streetscapes highlighted with their signature red.

One even included a scene of Place Vendôme itself, la Colonne Vendôme – the Vendome Column – and all. And, as you can see in my post Christmas in Paris: City of Light, their building was wrapped in a stunning, giant bow of sparkling, red lights.

Sparkling Jewels

And with such a wide array of gorgeous diamond and gemstone jewellery on display, these window designers prove that there is definitely more than one way to light up a window!

Sugar Plums

While jewellers dazzled with diamonds, les pâtisseries enticed with visions of sugar plums. I particularly liked this first one below by Lenôtre that included paper silhouettes of many of Paris’ major landmarks. They definitely celebrated Christmas in Paris in style!

Jewel Tones

And while many of the windows that I came upon used a winter-white palette, several added considerably more colour. Tiffany & Co. went with their traditional Tiffany blue while Opéra Garnier used an iridescent palette. And the department store BHV Paris chose a wintery-night blue.

Honey Gold

Others stayed with a more traditional French palette of muted colours. While some added a festive touch with sparkling gold highlights. And some of their accents pieces, like the dancing ballerinas from Repetto and the garland of baby booties in a craft shop, were so sweet that they would soften even the Scroogiest of hearts. And I even found a festive abeille française – French bee!

Snowy Forests

Other displays took us out of the city and into peaceful scenes of winter forests, reindeer and all. So, should you ever find yourself celebrating Christmas in Paris, makes sure to take some time to stroll the streets and enjoy these little works of art and wonder.