With all eyes on Paris for the Olympics, many brands made sure to open flagship stores this year ahead of the arrival of millions of tourists during and after the games.
Hoka opened its first store in Paris’s Opéra district in May and Birkenstock opened its first Paris store in the Marais district in July. Levi’s and Salomon, brands that already had a physical presence in France, added new spaces for flagships on the coveted Champs-Élysées avenue. Many of the brands opening up in Paris are well-known in wholesale, opening the stores to be in front of customers and grow their DTC channels.
Retail executives wanted to showcase their brands on the world stage during the games, but these aren’t short-term pop-ups just for two weeks — they’re a long-term investment in an already popular city expected to have a tourism boost from the games for years to come.
“Every brand would die to have a store on the Champs-Élysées,” Lucia Marcuzzo, managing director in Europe for Levi’s, told Modern Retail. “Not only is this our pinnacle expression [of the brand] and the latest flagship that we have opened, but we are also activating it for this special time in Paris.”
Levi’s, which had been on the Champs-Élysées for more than a decade, moved to a prominent corner location for its flagship store, part of the brand’s focus on growing in DTC. In 2022, Levi Strauss & Co. aimed to grow DTC to become 55% of its total revenue. The company is getting closer: in 2021, DTC was 36% of its revenue, and in May 2024, it was 47%, according to financial filings.
Though the store wasn’t just aimed at the Olympics, the facade currently features an Olympics-themed art installation and the store will have special activations for the games. The store also features a limited line of products developed for the Olympics, including t-shirts, fleeces and a bomber jacket in the colors of the French flag.
“The Olympics is an important element, but first of all, we stand for our brand,” Marcuzzo said. “We see everything through the lens of the brand. Our ambition is to be not only the worldwide denim leader but to really own the denim lifestyle.”
Sneaker brand Salomon opened a new flagship store on the Champs-Élysées in May with a unique theme around mountain sports. Like other brands on the avenue, Scott Mellin, global chief brand officer for Salomon, said the store is a long commitment with the timing tied to the Olympics and will offer events introducing visitors to athletes connected to the brand.
The company has been operating stores in Paris for about 15 years and has been shopping for space on the Champs-Élysées for about two years. Salomon has been involved with the Winter Olympics through snow sports, especially skiing, but he said it made sense to be involved in the Summer Olympics as the brand, previously known more for trail running, expands in road running.
Mellin said it was important as a French brand to be involved with the first Olympics in Paris in 100 years and that the store is intended to boost Salomon’s low brand awareness on the international level.
“It’s a place for us to introduce our current innovations in product technology, and combining that with an international event like the Olympics was super important,” Mellin said. “But from a brand exposure point of view, Paris is such an international destination, and whether it’s the Olympics like it is today, or rewind six weeks ago to June, the composition of the consumer on the Champs-Élysées is so global, it’s actually like a big ad for us for global brand awareness.”
Marina Lavrov, retail director for CBRE in France, said she saw a huge boost in leasing last year, especially by sports brands. What she had expected was a wave of pop-up stores just for the brands to be present during the games. Instead, she saw brands decide they would have to make a big investment either way and go the long-term route. In 2023, 13 retailers signed new leases just on the Champs-Élysées, according to Lavrov, who said that in a normal year there would be two or three new leases.
“All these sports brands decided to open flagships, and then it was just a race between each of them to get the better store, the biggest store,” she said. “Some of them at the beginning were looking for pop-ups and then they turned into long-term plays.”
Visitors during the games themselves may be lower than initially expected. Paris tourism office’s projections for the Olympics fell from 15 million to 11 million tourists as the city enforced strict security measures, with only about 1.5 million expected to come from abroad, The New York Times reported. But the focus on the games for brands isn’t on bringing people to Paris for two weeks, it’s on the decade that follows the city’s few weeks in the spotlight on TV and online during the games.
Ermengarde Jabir, director of economic research for Moody’s, describes the Olympics as a roughly €9 billion marketing campaign showing off the city and surrounding areas in hopes of creating a bounce in tourism and international attention. London, for example, saw a record number of visitors following the 2012 Olympics, with a 12% year-over-year increase to 2.9 million in June 2013.
“The amount of tourism [in London] skyrocketed post-Olympics because the whole world got to see the city from a different angle; Paris is really banking on that,” Jabir said. “I think there’s the thought that the influx will be exactly during the two weeks of the Olympics, but the reality is that it’s a long-term strategy basically to continue to attract visitors and really highlight the city in a positive way.”
