Swatch Paris Champs-Élysées Megastore reopening

02-Jun-2022, Paris, France

On 02-JUN, the Swatch Paris Champs-Élysées Megastore was reopened after a long redecoration period.

Thomas Sonneville sent me photos and infos from the reopening event on 02-JUN. 

Update 16-JUN:  Several new photos of special SwatchXYou were added, incl. signing...

During our Swatch X Centre Pompidou Club Launch Event visit at the beginning of March, it looked much much smaller:


Here is the report by Thomas about the reopening event:

I arrived early (don't be too late! rules).  I wanted to change some battery, to restart a Limelight from 86 and to look after some MoonSwatch.  No MoonSwatch were available unfortunately.  Only a few pieces arrived in the morning and were sold probably to the resellers, who make the queue every morning... (no comments)

But the Megastore were booked for the press only from 17 to 19. The hostesses asked me what media did I work for...I should have answered "for Stay Tuned To Swatch!" :-)


So I've got 1 hour to kill and decided to go for a walk on the Champs-Elysées.  But the street were blocked by the police, because the president Macron had to drive down it, so no one was allowed to cross the street for long minutes (Time is what you make of it!) :-) ...many people were annoyed because of the passage of a single man...lot's of policemen, official cars and bikers were used...what a shame...but it's France, it's Paris...

"Paris" is the main theme of the new look for the Megastore.

At 19h30, the french Swatch collectors were invited to enter the Megastore.  A special Swatch gazette (a newspaper) was handed out to the collectors.  "Breathe Paris at Swatch - The Swatch Megastore on the Champs-Elysées causes a sensation with its new design concept"

A warm welcome speech by the French Swatch team. They couldn't do this reopening without inviting the french collectors.

The floor of the Swatch store is fully paved and the entrance looks like a small square (that is actually round :-) with its small shops : bakery, bistro, shoe repair, cheese factory, florist and greengrocers.

Some french typical dishes (sausages, ham sandwiches, Brie sandwiches, eggs with mayonnaise, raw vegetables, croque-monsieur...) and wines (Champagne, rosé wine, Chablis (nice white wine!) Saint-Estèphe (really nice red wine!)) were served.

The rest of the shop is a reconstruction of the shore of the Seine river with its booksellers' boxes  In the store, the Swatches are displayed among the books...  Some birches are spread throughout the shop and a Métro (french subway) entrance is reconstructed at the back.

 

Funny detail : a lone bike wheel was left attached to the tree, just like if the bike was stolen (a typical Parisian habit?)

A "Course de garçons de café" (waiter race), another old french tradition, was organised throughout the store!  Three collectors (me included) were asked to do the same. I wasn't able to take pictures of that  ...and I won the race ! :-)  A really very nice atmosphere between the competitors, who congratulated each other.

A small orchestra with a great singer was playing some nice soulful songs.

Now let's talk about the artist who decorated the store:  Decktwo aka Thomas Dartigues...

When Swatch announced his nickname last week, it reminded something to me...back in the days...
In fact, I have known this guy for 15 years (not physically, but in a forum), because we (still) have the same passion about sneakers. He is a New Balance addict.
At this time (many years ago), Decktwo was already talented in making drawings on his sneakers and graffitis on the walls.  The result was always impressive.

So we finally met at this Swatch event and he remembered me. These are the really cool coincidences of life
He is really a very nice guy and we talked a lot about sneakers and his art.

He has been working on the walls of the Megastore for 3 months! When customers are present and even sometimes at night!

He represented the main monuments of Paris: Eiffel tower, Assemblée Nationale (french parliament), Notre Dame, Opéra Garnier, Musée d'Orsay (an old train station), Centre Pompidou...

After 3 months of work, Decktwo has almost finished his fresco. He is currently working on finalizing the Grand Palais.

Many small Swatch-related details are hidden all over his work. A careful look is necessary to discover some of them.


The cyclist obviously wears a pair of New Balance

Decktwo was very friendly with everybody, posing for pictures, signing staff shirts.
The Swatch staff know him very well now, as they have been working in the same place since many months!

Let's talk about the SwatchXYou dedicated to the reopening of the Swatch Megastore in Paris:

The Swatch mail said:  "The artist Thomas Dartigues alias Decktwo will also be present to finalize live the fresco that dresses the walls of the store and autograph the SwatchXYou models created from the patterns he imagined with Swatch, available exclusively at the Megastore."

Sadly, the computer went down and no watch could be printed this evening :-(

Decktwo produced 2 canvases to create your own SwatchXYou: one is (will be? nothing on website at the moment) available worldwide (right) and the other one is available only at the Megastore (left). No special watches were produced for this event.



The event finished at around 11pm.

Everybody was invited to take a bag to shop like at their little vegetable market: you could choose flowers, bread, bretzel, muffins, cheese, bottles of wine, wooden shoe horn and vegetables (multi-coloured tomatoes, asparagus, carrots, mushrooms of Paris, potatoes, zucchini...)

Some Swatchetables POP by Alfred Hofkunst would have definitely had their place here!

A kind photographer with a Polaroid camera was present to immortalize the moment...

Update 16-JUN:

On the day of the reopening event (02-JUN), the printing machine for the SwatchXYou was not usable, so it was impossible to print the special Decktwo canvases for a few days.  Meanwhile, the printing machine was repaired so Thomas met again with Decktwo for a special signing session.  Here are a few photos from the printing and signing process (thank you Thomas!):

Some extra pictures of the entrance area of the store.  Sadly, some screens are not yet active or have the Windows task bar and the icons visible at the bottom :-/  It surely will be fixed soon.

Thomas Sonneville & Andreas Wiethoff, 04 and 16-JUN-2022

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