Après Colette? A Concept Shop Named Nous

PARIS — The grate was not yet down on Colette before the eulogies began.

For two decades, Colette Roussaux and Sarah Andelman’s store had been the one that fashion people looked to to tell them what was cresting on the horizon, that introduced them not only to designer fashion but also to art books and heavy, expensive twice-a-year magazines and candles and gadgets and sneakers and tchotchkes of every unpredictable type. It had essentially made the fortune of its stretch of Rue St.-Honoré, now colonized by luxury brands, and become a site of pilgrimage not only for Parisians but also for fashion week pilgrims on their semiannual rounds.

But in December, Colette shut for the final time, Roussaux to “take her time,” as her daughter, Andelman, put it, and Andelman to consult. The eulogies turned to a question: Where would we go now?

The answer is not likely to be a single store but, less than a month after the closing of Colette, a contender has emerged: Nous (French for “us”), from two of Andelman’s longtime employees, Sébastien Chapelle, who ran the watches and electronics department at Colette, a 14-year veteran of the store; and Marvin Dein, who handled sneakers and had been there for nine.

Gadgets and sneakers had been two of the mainstays of Colette’s always-thronged ground floor, and Chapelle and Dein have imported their respective specialties to Nous. More sneakers are to come, but watches (100-euro Casios, or $122, and five-figure timepieces customized by Bamford and Mad Paris) are already arrayed, near instant cameras, sunglasses and the odd pair of binoculars.

Many of the products featured at Colette have come along, too: OnePlus 5T Android cellphones (559 euros, about $684), for example, an early best seller since Nous opened, or rolling papers from Devambez for the stoner antiquarian of means (32 rolling papers and 32 paper tips, 85 euros (about $104). (Maison Devambez is better known as a supplier of fine stationery and the like.) As Colette had a selection of magazines, so does Nous, as well as the Mizensir candles the store used to stock. Colette customers — Chapelle said many have already been by — might even recognize some of Colette’s security guards at the door.

But Nous has less whimsy than Colette had, and less fashion, too. “We’re more into streetwear,” Chapelle said, taking a break from some notes scrawled, still, on a Colette pad, and a sleeker, harder edge and sound. (On the soundtrack: English rapper J Hus and Drake.) The mix skews toward menswear, though there are some women’s pieces, and more to come. (At the moment, the selection is largely limited to bedazzled, shredded jean jackets and tie-dyed hoodies by the Los Angeles label Death by Dolls.)

“This is not something that we wanted, to be the inheritors of Colette,” Chapelle said. “It’s hard to have that name on our shoulders.” In fact, he added, “There would be no reason to do it if there was Colette.”

But there isn’t Colette, even if there is blessed memory, so Nous has sprung up on Rue Cambon, not far from its predecessor, and just down the block from the famous apartment (and shop) of Chanel. Chapelle recounted that a group from Chanel had already come in, lured by the sight of a trompe l’oeil art piece — of a Pharrell Williams sneaker designed in collaboration with Chanel and Adidas — carved from a single block of wood. For 5,000 euros (about $6,121), Nous offers shoppers the opportunity to commission their own wooden sneaker, of any make and model.

The whole space came together in about three months, said Chapelle, who requested the poured concrete walls and rows of glass vitrines. He was under the pressure of being open in time for men’s fashion week, when he knew from years of experience, the hordes would descend. And on a recent weekday just before the event’s start here, browsers included not only a young pair in his and hers faux furs but also a delegation from Valentino (Pierpaolo Piccioli, the house’s creative director, presumably at work on his collection, was absent but wanted a full report, one said).

No one had been sleeping much in the lead-up to the opening, Chapelle said, but the doors opened on Jan. 8, just in time.

“If you had come three days before the opening, nobody would believe it,” he said. “I had customers coming saying: ‘Are you open tomorrow? Are you sure?'”