**Please note** Louis Vuitton has disabled the ability to book online appointments at the locations previously mentioned in this post. It was nice while it lasted!
If your goal for this summer is an epic shopping trip at the Louis Vuitton flagship store in Paris on Champs-Elysées, you’ll need to start plotting a strategy. For the first time in the past 20 years, the Euro and US Dollar are at parity. This–combined with the fact that European prices include a hefty 20% VAT tax that is refundable to tourists from certain regions– leads to the shopping opportunity of a lifetime. I’m freshly back from a long-overdue European excursion with my family, including a stay on that famed stretch of shopping heaven, and I’m writing this to ensure you get a visit to this Louis Vuitton shopping mecca under your gorgeous monogram belt in as painless of a way as possible. Don’t forget to read my follow-up post detailing how to buy an authentic Louis Vuitton bag at 35% off!
The shopping experience of yesteryear is over, and there are pros and cons to this fact. Those whimsical shopping excursions where you drifted freely in and out of every store, arms lined with shopping bags and giggling friends in tow, are over. What has replaced them is outdoor lines of a length that would make a Disney World enthusiast shake their head and call it a day. One night on Champs-Elysées at dusk I approached a very short line in front of Louis Vuitton only to see guards posted at the end turning people away. I asked them what time they stop allowing customers to line up for the night. Their answer was 5:50 pm. The closing time that particular day was 8:00 pm so yes, the queue that day was over two hours long.
But you are not destined for this hassle! If you’re reading this, it’s because you’re smart. You’re planning ahead and with some strategy you will succeed! But first I need to give you a bit of cold hard reality. There’s a choice to be made and you need to decide what is most important to you. Do you want to 1) Purchase your new Louis Vuitton items at the flagship store in Paris, and only Champs-Elysées will check that box? or 2) Spend as little time on this task as possible, securing your steal of a deal quickly and squeezing in more sight-seeing?
Shopping Strategies For Getting Into the Louis Vuitton Flagship Store On Champs-Elysées, Summer 2022
Regardless of which question you answered yes to above, the first two steps will be the same. Step one is to try to make an appointment at the flagship store online. If you’re lucky enough to snag a date and time at the Champs-Elysées location, good for you! It doesn’t mean there will be ZERO waiting but it definitely means you won’t be in a two hour long line in the summer sun! The bad news here is that appointments at that location are scarce, and the ability to make an appointment at Champs-Elysées was even recently pulled so this choice may not be available for you.
Step two, again regardless of your answer to my original question, is to make an appointment for yourself at another location if you can’t book Champs-Elysées. If you’re determined to make that purchase at Champs-Elysées you can consider this appointment a backup just in case things go sideways. You don’t want to go home empty-handed, do you? Book the appointment for the day after you plan to line up on Champs-Elysées as an insurance policy. Your step three would then be to get to the store before the open to wait in line as soon as you are possibly able. I’m not sure what time the line starts to form, but this is honestly your best bet for quick entry, comfortable temperatures, and not wasting your prime time in Paris in a line. Grab a coffee and a croissant and aim to be there at least fifteen minutes in advance. I’m not sure what time people start lining up, but I know for a fact you won’t be alone! For you, the appointment is just a backup plan. If you manage to get in, enjoy! If not, you have the emergency appointment where you can make your purchases.
If you’ve decided it’s all about the shopping and the location doesn’t matter, then this shopping trip is about to be a whole lot more relaxing and enjoyable for you. Your step three would be to book another alternate appointment (if available) just in case the item you want isn’t at your first location or in the event of a schedule hiccup. For me, booking an appointment was easy to do while my feet were on the ground in Paris, but my advice would be to do this at least two weeks in advance. If you can book it a month out that’s even better!
How To Cut The Line At Louis Vuitton Paris, Summer 2022
Good alternatives for the Champs-Elysées location with huge selection are Montaigne (a short walk south from the flagship store) and Vendôme (conveniently near the Jardin des Tuileries). There are many different Louis Vuitton stores scattered throughout Paris of varying sizes and you can check to see if the items you are most interested in seeing are offered at each of these stores before making an appointment. If you chose to simply pick a different location and make an appointment (this–incidentally–was my personal choice) the rest of your day will be simple. When you arrive at the location you can immediately go to the front of the line and check in with the staff member at the front. This person will speak multiple languages and know exactly why you are there, so don’t be intimidated! There may still be a small wait involved if your assigned staff member is with a client, otherwise you will be ushered directly in and on with your shopping experience!
I was planning to write all about VAT and how to get a refund in this post, but given that this is already a lengthy post I’m going to save that for another day. At this point I will simply offer some motherly advice. Nothing… and I mean nothing… replaces reality and the opportunities it offers. When you are out, enjoying life in the flesh, amazing opportunities can come from nowhere.
My hotel was near the Louis Vuitton flagship store on Champs-Elysées, so one evening as my family relaxed at the hotel I darted out to see if I could possibly get into the store quickly (nope) and browse around some of the other shops. This led me to explore a tiny popup across Champs-Elysées that I had passed earlier in the day. I had no idea what was inside, but there was only one other person waiting and I had time so I decided to wander in. Upon entering I was given a short exclusive tour with the explanation that this location was not a store, but rather a space dedicated as a tribute to the late Virgil Abloh. The space was styled in his trademark street-smart aesthetic and filled with items from his final collection for the brand. Inside this space–the tiny little popup with NO LINE–were items that at the time couldn’t be seen by consumers in person anywhere else on the planet. I had the luck to not only loiter about inside photographing them, but to be one of only a small handful of people in a space teaming with Louis Vuitton team members free to answer questions.
Today the Louis Vuitton online site is down today due to “high traffic from the Louis Vuitton and Nike “Air Force 1” by Virgil Abloh” release, so it seems appropriate for me to share these juicy images I managed to capture. This high energy space felt much like wandering into Virgil Abloh’s imagination. It was truly an homage to his achievements and sense of style.
If you loved this post, don’t forget to hop on over for my information on how to get a huge discount on authentic Louis Vuitton bags by shopping in Europe!
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