I went to the Hermès flagship during a two-day stay in Paris last month. The brand is a bit statusy…read more(and expensive) for my taste, but they have a tableware line I've admired for years, and I figured it'd be meaningfully cheaper in France. I wasn't going to go out of my way during such a short visit with my two small children, but when we found ourselves walking past the place on our way to the Christmas markets, I decided to go in for a quick browse.
It turned out to be a wonderful stop on our chaotic Christmas-themed mini-tour of France. The store had been transformed into a fancy Christmas destination, with a scavenger hunt that took guests, both children and adults, through several stops within the store, where they played adorable immersive carnival-style games and received stamps in a little book. Once the stamps were all collected, they could be redeemed for a special gift.
At first, I was just grateful that my kids had something to do while my friend and I looked at a change tray I'd had my eye on for a few Christmases but had never seen in person. The woman helping me (I think her name was Claude) was gracious and professional. She had me sit, showed me catalogues, and went into the depths of inventory to retrieve the tray I wanted. I ran the numbers and figured I was looking at about a 30% discount with the French price and the tax refund. I bought the change tray and took it home in that distinctive orange box, which I put under the tree as a gift to myself.
When I found my children again, they were with my mom in the climactic final stage of the scavenger hunt, a lushly decorated Christmas room with a couple of final games and the prize station: a table where all customers were invited to make their own Christmas ornaments with Hermès store quality ribbons and leather and little bits of hardware. There were sweet attendants who helped my boys, but most of the people claiming these prizes were adults.
My kids had an absolute blast, and I got some great photos of them throwing fluffy snowballs at felt Christmas trees and posing in a fake gondola in the shape of an Hermès luggage tag. My five-year-old declared that this was his favorite store, and I tried to get him to memorize "Hermès Saint-Honoré" so we could troll his dad on FaceTime.
I was pleased with my purchase, and all of us, children and adults, were impressed and thrilled with this surprise holiday experience. I'll bet we could sell those ornaments for a couple hundred bucks, too, but I'm happier having them on our tree.