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The striking, two-floor 362sq m store will be located at 78 Champs-Élysées |
In February 2013 MAC Cosmetics will open its third global flagship store, in Paris, on the famous Champs-Élysées. The brand’s other flagship doors are located in Times Square and Fifth Avenue, New York. The Paris store will cover 362sq m, over two floors.
“As a trend setting brand, we have been waiting for just the right opportunities to present themselves in these fashion capitals,” noted MAC Cosmetics Global Brand President Karen Buglisi. “We anticipate these to be high volume doors for the brand, due to the large number of visitors they attract from around the world. Each year, approximately 167 million people travel to the Champs-Élysées.”
While the Champs-Élysées opening will doubtless prove to be a canny commercial move (the 128 stores housed on the Champs-Élysées generate a sales turnover of €1 billion per year), it also highlights MAC’s ability to react and respond to trends in consumerism, the brand maintains.
Paris is internationally synonymous with style and creativity, drawing a multicultural audience impressionable to the city’s fashion capital heritage. Every season, between the fashion capitals of New York, London, Milan and Paris, MAC supports over 200 shows, from emerging to established designers. Living and breathing fashion and trend is an inherent part of MAC’s DNA.
Opening a distinctive, prominent and impressive flagship store in the fashion capital of the world further strengthens the brand’s fashion message and trend authority, MAC believes. “Our global flagship strategy supports the idea that MAC behaves more like a luxury fashion brand, but captures a much larger audience as a result of our commitment to creating products that appeal to “˜All Ages, All Races and All Sexes’,” Buglisi added.
The Champs-Élysées opening also represents “the quintessential celebration location and global focus for the city” according to MAC, thanks to its unrivalled visibility, traffic and prestige. “No make-up brand is more global and more equipped to cater to such a diverse and important audience than MAC,” stated Buglisi. “This new flagship store will make an incredibly strong, very exciting brand statement.”
“There’s a look and feel to MAC’s design aesthetics but the cultural and spatial context of every MAC store is always thought about sensitively. We don’t ever want to be “˜cookie cutter’,” noted MAC Cosmetics Senior Vice President James Gager.
“Consumers in such high traffic destinations as the Champs-Élysées demand spectacle and a level of elevated aesthetics. We therefore strive to create unique spaces that individually feel important, inspirational and striking.“ |
James Gager Senior Vice President MAC Cosmetics |
“Despite being in Paris, we did not want to evoke anything particularly cultural with the store design. The focus was on giving the structure a sense of magnificence, working with the fact that architecture in Paris is innovative and risk taking. Which is why we decided to make this amazing shell within the store”¦a cascade of black mirrors which plays with the grandeur of the double-height space.
“[The dome] reflects and refracts the graphic and colour-saturated LED animations projected in the store, fragmenting their shades and shape,” Gager added. “The idea is that they generate a visual interest at street level which captures the imagination and draws people inside. The rest of the store design is very simple, but with the dome we wanted to gain attention in an appropriate way, to create real “˜wow’ factor. MAC is a very theatrical brand and we wanted to reflect that.”
Gager continued: “Consumers in such high traffic destinations as the Champs-Élysées demand spectacle and a level of elevated aesthetics. We therefore strive to create unique spaces that individually feel important, inspirational and striking. It’s about creating a memorable architectural experience as much as a memorable MAC experience.”
Mindful of the brand’s founding principle – All Ages, All Races, All Sexes – over thirty make-up artists with diverse language skills, life experiences and backgrounds will work at the Champs-Élysées store.
“We don’t have “˜beauty consultants’…we have Makeup Artists,” confirmed Gordon Espinet, Senior Vice President, Artist Training and Development, MAC Cosmetics. “What makes the MAC experience so unique is that we have extreme diversity in the people who work with us. However, irrespective of age, language, culture, background or ethnicity, they are all genuinely passionate and talented make-up artists who have an innate desire and ability to positively connect with consumers and constantly rethink the potentials of make-up.”
“We educate our Artists and certify them,” explains Buglisi. “The Artist behind the counter is our first customer: if you can convince them and inspire them, they will share that with customers. Hence, what we can offer to the consumer feels different from what the consumer gets from another brand that has a higher rate of [staff] turnover.”
To appeal to the expected broad consumer mix, the product offer at the Champs-Élysées flagship will have “multicultural relevancy”, according to MAC. In addition to the full MAC range (over 1,200 skus including new colour collections and MAC store-only exclusive collections), additional lines with a global appeal, previously only available to specific MAC markets, will feature.
The store will also offer 360-degree consumer engagement via the ultimate in high-touch and high-tech retailing, MAC maintains. For example, the Champs-Élysées flagship will feature the first Lash Bar in France (whereby the full selection of MAC lashes are displayed and back-lit on a vertical surface at worktop height).
There are 12 make-up stations (eight in a central hub on the ground floor; two more in the VIP area and in the private make-up area) will feature professional lighting and fully adjustable seating. A constant programme of animations will attract customers in and compel them to stay. “We are trying to be more cognizant of the customer who wants to play for a while,” noted Gager.
Lastly, the Champs-Élysées flagship will serve as an industry event space, functioning as a hub for editorial broadcasting activity, filming and VIP appointments. It will also host PR events for bloggers and make-up applications for local and global media during Paris Fashion Week, in addition to serving as a venue for Masterclasses and MAC’s seasonal Trend presentations.
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