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- Herve Dewintre
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Monday, 07 December 2020
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Joining forces with the owner of Le Bon Marché in 1952, Aristide Boucicaut not only transformed a modest novelty store into a temple of modern consumption, but also laid the foundation for what we now call merchandising. This innovation, widely described in Émile Zola’s novel “Au Bonheur des Dames”, resulted in a special gift for staging, making clothing and fabrics displayed in all their glory. The famous final pages of Zola’s novel, devoted to the exhibition on white, still reveal to us the surprise and admiration that customers feel in front of a fairytale-inspired showcase.
Header 2Combining the pleasure of walking with personal enrichment ## Header 2
Since 2016, the Parisian department stores have offered carte blanche to an internationally recognized artist, to make their talent shine, a very innovative initiative that consists of putting contemporary art at the heart of retail, but which is also an extension of the vision of commerce as imagined by Aristide Boucicaut. This vision has been validated by the LVMH group to which Le Bon Marché belongs: one of the luxury Groups par excellence, which has promoted the experience of physical shopping through an artistic journey, combining the pleasure of walking with enrichment inside.
Since 2016, El Bon Marché has left the artist to develop his project in a totally free way. There is only one condition: respect the white color in homage to the commercial operation of the month of white that Aristide Boucicaut imagined to highlight the home linen during the month of January. After Ai Weiwei, Chiharu Shiota, Leandro Erlich, Joana Vasconcelos and Oki Sato, this year it’s the turn of Prune Nourry, a rising figure on the contemporary international scene, tasked with dressing the Left Bank establishment with works created specifically for the occasion.
Under the title “Erogenous Amazon”, the artist’s installation can be seen in different parts of Le Bon Marché, with works installed throughout the Center, from the central staircase to the shop windows. The common thread of the Amazons, mythological warriors known for not hesitating to have their breasts removed to shoot arrows with greater precision, echoes the personal story of Prune Noury who fought against breast cancer. Hundreds of white wooden arrows and feathers will dangle under the massive glass ceiling towards a 4 meter wide bullseye chest, overlooking the grand escalators. Between them, a monumental bent arch will also be suspended in the air. In the shop windows, the arrows will form geometric patterns inspired by the current of American minimalism, in particular by Sol LeWitt and Franck Stella.
This article has been previously published on FashionUnited.fr, and translated and edited by Paula V. Pinuaga.
Photo credit: Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche
Image: Gustavo Fring / Pexels
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