World’s oldest department store feels like the streets of Paris

Paris CNN — As the cradle of high fashion, Paris gave the world designers like Coco Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent and Christian Dior, who in turn gifted the world some of fashion history’s most enduring iconography, including the LBD, or little black dress. Le Bon Marché was founded in Paris in 1852, making it the world's oldest and longest-running department store. A gathering space for the female bourgeoisie Along with rewriting the codes of commerce, the store would become a “haven of freedom and pleasure” for Parisian women of the bourgeoisie, writes Monica Burckhardt in “Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche: The Invention of the Department Store,” published in 2013 and commissioned by Le Bon Marché. Archives du Bon Marché Rive Gauche Today, Le Bon Marché bills itself as the small, big department store, a play on words in French. Unlike Macy’s, the well-known US department store which has been closing its doors around the country, Le Bon Marché isn’t fighting to stay alive.