For those of you who can’t make it to Paris this Xmas (has to be seen to be believed), we went down to the main department stores (at 11pm so as not to be crushed by shoppers or deafened by children) to take photos of their famous, traditional animated window displays. But does traditional mean cool or cruddy? You be the juge over the next few days with our photo reports. Here’s part 1 of 4…

Vidéo by Le Journal des Vitrines, a cool blog about the shop windows of Paris (and sometimes elsewhere).

After a long, l-o-n-g restoration, the art nouveau façade of the Printemps store is now shiny as new pin, and was inaugurated with a rather frightening light show… and fireworks! (see above) at the same moment as their Xmas decorations and window displays.

As usual, the displays are half fashion (static), half toys (animated) and often very impressively executed.

Today’s blog entry is the first of four reports – two about Le Printemps and two about Les Galeries Lafayette –  and in today’s we’ll be showing you the fashion side of Printemps, very Russian bling bling (as if Parisian bling bling wasn’t good enough!).

Tomorrow, photos and a video of the toys!