French luxury retailer Printemps is giving its Paris flagship over to shoes.

Running Sept. 9 through Oct. 28, “Pas à Pas” occupies the Wybo dome on the sixth floor of Printemps Femme at 64 Boulevard Haussmann. The exhibition runs across 11 sections, setting museum loans and pieces borrowed from luxury houses against the retailer’s own archives.

Eleven sections, one accessory
Themes include Performance, Adornment, Imprint, Transparency and Fetish, framing footwear as protective, ornamental, functional and symbolic by turns.

The design pairs historical pieces with contemporary ones, adding visual and auditory cues meant to draw out craftsmanship and technical change rather than present a straight chronology.

The exhibition runs across 11 sections. Image credit: Printemps

A free audio tour is available through a QR code at the entrance, and guided weekend tours require registration through the retailer’s website.

The exhibition also carries an academic component. Printemps invited 13 fashion school students to rework the loafer from its SAISON 1865 line, working to technical constraints and a commercial brief.

ESMOD Paris student Camille Laveran won. Her design appears in the exhibition and in a window on Boulevard Haussmann, and her prototype will be produced as part of a SAISON 1865 collection.

The retailer staged a comparable show on handbags last year, and has been building cultural programming across its properties, including its New York store (see story).