the essential
Every year, they are awaited like the messiah. The Galeries Lafayette Christmas windows seek to amaze Toulouse residents with their colorful and avant-garde compositions.
Three windows, or nothing! This is what Galeries Lafayette is once again presenting to enchant Toulouse residents’ Christmas. This year, the department store called on the talent of Kevin Germanier, a rising fashion star, to imagine them. We owe him in particular the costumes for the closing ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. This Swiss designed a first very colorful 3D decor where five models in evening wear, mixing dressy and casual, mingle with silhouettes white or pink fir trees. Next to it, three other models, in more conventional and chic black party clothes this time, strike a pose. This eleven meter long window ends with a blue marbled staircase, bordered by a purple banister, which offers a rise to the heavens for handbags of varied shapes and colors.
DDM , – Frédéric Charmeux.
The second window dedicated to household items is illuminated by the presence of a stylized fuchsia Santa Claus holding a bird in his hand. It overlooks a table on which are stored pell-mell: glasses, stemware, perfumes, lamp, bowl of biscuits… Another Christmas man, dressed all in gold, responds to him in the next window dedicated to beauty. He is flanked by two models in black jackets.
Imagined a year in advance
These tailor-made installations, installed in the heart of the city, which combine fashion and the imagination of Christmas, require a lot of preparation. “We generally start installing them in mid-November while preparation begins at the end of October and lasts two and a half weeks. They are there to inspire dreams, especially for children,” announces Claude Leveque, director of Galeries Lafayette.
These decorations are imagined a year in advance, at the headquarters in Paris. “They have the same philosophy. On the other hand, depending on the dimensions of the windows of the various stores, we will tell a more or less long story,” continues the director. Every year, Galeries Lafayette calls on a designer who must find a common thread to connect the different scenes. “This is our anniversary: 130 years. We are revisiting the wonderful Christmas with poetic and fantastic representations in order to transport everyday life,” adds Claude Leveque. And to make the magic of Christmas even more beautiful, the lights have been reinforced inside the windows. While outside, waterfalls of light fall from the sky.
DDM , – Frédéric Charmeux.
These charming windows are also there to “sell a beautiful moment to passers-by. You can look at these paintings furtively or stop to examine them in detail. Depending on your imagination, everyone will find something there”, slips Claude Leveque.
To offer this part of the dream to the people of Toulouse, Galeries Lafayette spends the modest sum of… €50,000, a sum which includes the decorations inside. Since the store is decorated with trees (the same ones every year) on which 4,000 Christmas baubles are hung.
“Christmas remains a magical time compared to the calendar. We get away from everyday life. We know that everyone is waiting for us: customers, staff, passers-by,” concludes Claude Leveque.
