The Merci Shop

111 bd Beaumarchais, 75003 Paris

Monday to Wednesday
10:30 am - 7:30 pm
Thursday to Saturday
10:30 am - 8 pm

Sunday
10:30 am - 7:30 pm

Merci is a store that questions our lifestyles.

This up-to-the-minute store scrutinises current attitudes and urban trends with an anthropologist’s eye and questions the way we live now. What’s the meaning of our evolving behaviours? Is there a pattern to our habits? If so, is it any different in Tokyo or London? Are there any inspirational objects or customs there we could use here?

The store is constantly fine-tuning its selections, highlighting trends to reflect its set of beliefs. The result is a game of to and fro between the fleeting and the lasting, played out to entertain visitors from near and far. Merci is a catalyst of the age, seeking out and introducing an array of bold concepts and fresh solutions to its home-like space .

Beauty alone isn’t enough, things need to be useful as well, function is essential. We would rather be guided and inspired by the ever-changing trends in the world than by the inevitable sameness of seasonal collections. Merci casts a careful eye on ordinary daily life and tries, as best it can, to make it extra-ordinary, one day at a time.

The exhibition

On the occasion of the launch of the Care essentials range, Birkenstock and Merci join forces to plunge you into a world of well-being.

Merci welcomes BIRKENSTOCK for the launch of its new Care Essentials range.

With 250 years of orthopedic tradition and expertise, BIRKENSTOCK opens a new chapter with this foot care line. This 3-step care routine features products such as bath salts, scrubs, balms and oils, to revitalize and care for the feet.

The range is designed for daily use, combining effectiveness and sensory pleasure. Made in Germany, vegan and COSMOS Natural certified, BIRKENSTOCK Care Essentials foot care products are developed from 100% natural ingredients and favor minimalist, sustainable, 100% recyclable and highly functional packaging.

Discover
Like a good editor-in-chief

Like a good editor-in-chief witnessing global changes, Merci takes a stance through its selections and exhibitions

The store is run with strong editorial influences, just like a magazine. It presents a view of society – almost a manifesto – which reflects what it cares about. In its back-to-basics approach, Merci combines a deep respect for handmade objects and small producers with references to popular culture in an effort to combat a uniform idea of luxury which is imposed upon us – one that is often ostentatious and lacking in emotion. At Merci, we say goodbye to the coordinated outfit, one-size-fits-all décor and beauty without utility. In short, anything that doesn’t make our heart race, stir our emotions or tell a story. Merci’s approach is one of personal luxury – standalone luxury – which can be found in the beautiful details of everyday life. This luxury is not created by frenzied mood board activity but is created through the living of life, with all its flaws and moments of transcendence. Merci values personal luxuries - the secret ones you find in the beautiful details of everyday life, the kind of luxury that can’t be described on busy mood boards, the luxury of living your life, with all its pleasures and tribulations.

A unique place

A surprising concept in a surprising place.

Designed to be welcoming rather than intimidating, based around conviviality and pleasure, more than a store, Merci is a haven of warmth and life. It is a consciously chosen destination, a place to go for its unique atmosphere and the pleasurable experience it offers. A surprising concept in a surprising place..

Merci set up home in a 19th-century building formerly occupied by a firm making furnishing fabrics and wallpapers. Occupying the entire building, this unique store resembles a large house. Even the window displays are in fact filled by cafés.

Offering a sensitive and responsible art of living in keeping with the times, this is the raison d’être of the store at 111 boulevard Beaumarchais.

Distinctively eclectic

Do you need a matching dining-room set? Not necessarily! Merci us a curator, with a new take on everyday objects, creating unexpected combinations in its fashion and home departments as well as its cafés. Duralex glasses sit alongside Jars Céramistes plates by Pierre Casenove and a plastic crate rubs shoulders with a Mathieu Matégot vintage trolley. The authenticity lies in the pairing of opposites: vintage and modern, handcrafted and mass- produced, expensive and inexpensive. This eclecticism is apparent in all three floors of the store, where furniture, linen, men’s and women’s fashion, eating spaces, practical objects and lifestyle items combine under a single roof. And this ethos extends to our prices as well – which run the range from reasonable to eye-wateringly exclusive.

A district reinvented

Who could have imagined that this great boulevard lined with motorbike and camera shops would become synonymous with creativity? Merci. And what an inspired choice it was! By setting up shop on the boulevard Beaumarchais and becoming a destination in itself, it injected new life into the Haut Marais, an area bordering the Marais, République and Bastille districts which people simply passed through. Nobody had stopped to admire its architecture, balconies and carriage entrances so typical of Second Empire pre-Haussmann Paris. Today, the district is full of great places to shop and eat. You come here to discover new designers and objects or simply to spend time in a neighbourhood that now very much reflects the Merci way of life.

Parisians, locals, students, families, friends and people from all over the world… we meet all types of people at 111 boulevard Beaumarchais!

Designed to be more welcoming than intimidating, around conviviality and pleasure, more than a store, Merci is a place to live. It's a place where people decide to go, a “destination store”, for its unique atmosphere and that moment of overall pleasure. You go there to make discoveries, of course, but also to have lunch, drink tea, stroll around, turn the pages of the Used Book Café, get inspired... A surprising concept calls for a surprising place. Merci has set up shop in a 19th-century building formerly occupied by an upholstery and wallpaper company. Unique in its kind, the blind which occupies the entire building (1500m2 with, in some places, 10-metre high ceilings) resembles a (large) house. Even the windows are not windows, but cafés (Used Book and Café Noir x Merci). From the ground floor to the second floor (where you'll find furniture and lighting, as well as stationery, bath and household linen), via the first floor (women's and men's fashion and accessories), you'll feel almost at home. Certain areas are symbolic, such as the entrance dome, the main exhibition area, flooded with light from its large glass roof. And, of course, the paved courtyard and its now-famous red Fiat 500. Avanti Merci!

Exhibition as a voice

When a hunch or observation plays on the mind of the people at Merci, it can sometimes go on to take shape through an exhibition.

Ten or so of these exhibitions take place each year under the glass dome of the magnificent atrium, where visitors are met with Merci’s take on a topic. Exhibitions have included: “Imparfait, Nobody’s Perfect” which celebrated the little flaws that make us all unique and which have been smoothed over by the standardisation of mass production. Standout exhibits included visual artist Nadia Gallardo’s iconic deformed Le Parfait jar and the twisted jugs by glassblower Bernard Heesen.

One example being the So Wax exhibition of iconic African fabrics. Through the work of new young designers such as Maison Château Rouge, Merci unveiled a contemporary Africa – a far cry from the traditional one we often associate it with. The “Merci en Rose” exhibition celebrated shades of pink, a hybrid colour which, prior to its association with innocence and eroticism, symbolised virility in the Middle Ages and wisdom in India. True to form, Merci examined the multiple identities of the shade, ranging from shocking to baby pink, Barbie to candy, in a colourful and cheerful celebration for the Autumn-Winter 2018-2019 Fashion Week.