Serge Lutens | A Purple Salon in the Garden Arcades

Serge Lutensの代表店舗、パリのパレ・ロワイヤル店の紫のサロンを描いたイラスト
2026.10.19

The place guided me.

Serge Lutens (translated from French)

How the boutique began

Serge Lutens opened his first perfume boutique before the creation of the brand that bears his name. In 1992, while working with Shiseido, he established Les Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido in the Palais Royal in Paris. It was a boutique conceived around both the fragrances and the rooms that would welcome them.

The arcades surrounding the Palais Royal gardens had long held Lutens’s affection. He had once considered living there, but what he loved was the experience of walking outside, sheltered by the beauty of the architecture. He chose a corner of those arcades for his salon, at 142 Galerie de Valois.

The Salons du Palais Royal belong to the Palais Royal. I would never have done this elsewhere.

Serge Lutens (translated from French)

In 1781, the Duke of Orléans entrusted the architect Victor Louis with a plan to enclose three sides of the garden with buildings and rent their ground floors to merchants. Lutens placed his perfume salon in arcades designed for walking beside the gardens and stopping at shops along the way.

After the Serge Lutens brand was established in 2000, the Palais Royal remained a place to encounter his world. Paris is also home to the rue Saint-Honoré boutique, whose interior draws on Lutens’s own memories.

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The thinking behind the boutique

What Lutens imagined at the Palais Royal was a place to engage with perfume as one might in a teahouse. He wanted customers to enter with curiosity and develop confidence in their own responses as they tried the fragrances. He sought to create not only the time for that experience, but the rooms around it.

The history of the location and the decorative arts of the Directory period after the French Revolution guided the interior. He studied the period and brought together beautiful elements that had been scattered across different houses. Rather than reproduce its colours, however, he added a palette of his own, from pale orchid shades to deep purple.

Boutiques to visit

Palais Royal boutique, Paris

The inlaid marble floor has a polished sheen. At the centre, a spiral staircase with intricate metalwork rises to the upper floor. Stars and colours recalling the night sky decorate the ceiling. Inside this garden-facing boutique, shades of purple meet the colours of the night.

Illustration of the Serge Lutens Palais Royal boutique, with purple walls, a starry ceiling and a black-and-gold spiral staircase.
The purple salon at the Palais Royal boutique (illustration)

Designers and craftspeople gave these details their form. Takao Hirai worked on the renovation, spatial arrangement, decoration and furniture, helping to turn Lutens’s vision into the salon.

The friezes, decorative bands running along the upper walls and other surfaces, include reliefs based on the signs of the zodiac. Atelier Rayssac produced 150 bas-reliefs from Lutens’s designs. The decorative workshop also made bronze models for the display cases.

Catherine Feff’s studio was responsible for the Palais Royal boutique’s intricate decorative painting. It painted dots and stars on the ceiling, arabesques on the walls and tiny imaginary insects along the tall skirting boards. These insects are shown gathering precious ingredients and making perfume.

The Flacons de Table have rounded shoulders and glass stoppers that recall apothecary bottles. Their curved outlines echo the arcades of the Palais Royal. The curves of the architecture surrounding the gardens also became part of the vessels that hold the fragrances.

At the salon, staff have traditionally dipped scent strips, known as mouillettes, into glass bottles before offering them to customers. Lacquered trays stood on small counters, where fragrances taken from the bottles were passed from hand to hand.

There was also a place upstairs to gather around fragrance. During the guided experience described by travel writer Irene S. Levine, scent strips labelled in advance with perfume names were laid out on a long, low table. Participants considered what each fragrance evoked and explored their own preferences. Today, the boutique continues to offer individual introductions to the fragrances and Lutens’s artistic world.

Saint-Honoré boutique, Paris

From the Palais Royal arcades to rue Saint-Honoré, with its more international clientele, the second Paris boutique was conceived as a place for Lutens to meet different people. While the first salon follows the history of its setting, this interior reflects the experiences he has gathered in different places.

Moroccan geometric patterns are carved into the cedar ceiling overhead.

the ceilings I designed were made in Morocco; the counters are worked like household altars

Serge Lutens (English wording published by Coveteur)

The forms of those altars recall churches and basilicas he saw as a child. The lacquered furniture brings in an ordered quality reminiscent of Japanese interiors.

Illustration of the Serge Lutens Saint-Honoré boutique, with a purple geometric ceiling, glossy black walls and a succession of circular mirrors.
The ceiling and passageway at the Saint-Honoré boutique (illustration)

At the Palais Royal, decorative paintings of stars and insects surround the rooms; at Saint-Honoré, geometric carving covers the ceiling. Lutens’s encounters with different cultures sit alongside one another within the same room.

When the boutique opened, it also included a space for choosing perfume-bottle stoppers. Striped, gold and geometric designs let customers bring their preferences to the vessel as well as the fragrance inside. The boutique considers the perfume, its bottle and the space in which it is chosen together.

References