An Inside Look At Le Bon Marché’s Careful Beauty Curation For Temporary Installation Los Angeles Rive Gauche

On Feb. 2, Los Feliz Botanicals co-founder Krystal Quinn Castro received a rather mysterious phone call from fashion and beauty consultancy F32 about an unnamed Le Bon Marché project. A subsequent email requested samples in four days and for Quinn Castro to pop by Cooper Design Space in downtown Los Angeles in six days.

When she arrived at the wholesale showroom building on Feb. 8, Quinn Castro encountered a frenzy she wasn’t expecting. “I was in the top 100 of the first season of ‘Canadian Idol,’ and this reminded me of those big cattle calls. There were brand owners and reps in the hallways waiting for a piece of table to open up, so they could go set up. I was set up alongside two other brands who made it in, Reverie and Rituel de Fille,” she recalls. “There were so many brands.”

On March 16, Quinn Castro was notified Le Bon Marché would place a purchase order for Los Feliz Botanicals to participate in the project, which turned out to be Los Angeles Rive Gauche, an installation at the department store running from Sept. 1 to Oct. 21. It’s one of around 20 beauty brands that made the trip from LA to Paris for the occasion, including Lilah B, Goop, Odacité, NCLA, Lauren B, Mermaid, Ouai, Kosås, Baxter of California, Philip B, May Lindstrom, Ranavat Botanics, Vintner’s Daughter and Skin Gym.

“It’s important for us to have niche brands because it’s in our DNA at Le Bon Marché that we have a lot of exclusive brands, and we’re a trendsetter,” says Marie Volle, the beauty buyer who spearheaded the selection of skincare, makeup and fragrance brands for Los Angeles Rive Gauche. “The customer that comes to Le Bon Marché expects to find exclusive brands in our store. It’s very different from any other store in Paris.”

Exhibitions such Los Angeles Rive Gauche solidify Le Bon Marché as at the vanguard of retailing – and its buyers take their commitment to maintaining its cutting-edge credibility seriously. The hunt for brands that could make the Los Angeles Rive Gauche cut was extensive, and began in January with a deep dive into social media, press reports and the offerings of LA stores, notably The Detox Market.

“I was in the top 100 of the first season of ‘Canadian Idol,’ and this reminded me of those big cattle calls. There were brand owners and reps in the hallways waiting for a piece of table to open up, so they could go set up. I was set up alongside two other brands who made it in, Reverie and Rituel de Fille. There were so many brands.”

In early February, Le Bon Marché’s beauty buyers spent a week in LA and had eight to 10 meetings scheduled with brands per day. While in the city, they visited shops – Volle named CAP Beauty at Fred Segal – teeming with LA brands, particularly those of a natural or organic bent. Most of the beauty brands ultimately tapped for Los Angeles Rive Gauche are described as clean or green.

“The big trend in green and organic beauty is very important in Los Angeles as it is in France,” says Volle. “French girls are more and more interested in organic products. They want to know about what they’re putting on their face and body, and it fits with the French lifestyle.”

For the Los Angeles Rive Gauche assortment, Volle preferred brands that weren’t distributed in France before entering Le Bon Marché. The brands had to be certified to sell in the European Union once the installation bowed. Los Feliz Botanicals and Ranavat Botanics became EU certified to join the lineup at Los Angeles Rive Gauche. Ranavat Botanics founder Michelle Ranavat estimates it took her brand four weeks to get certified. In addition, the brand had to produce French labels that it stuck on the backs of its packaging for Le Bon Marché.

The ability of brands to take part in events moved the needle for Volle, too. She details manicurists from NCLA and Lauren B, and hairstylists from Philip B have been on hand at Le Bon Marché. Goop has hosted facial events. “We wanted to create a big experience in our store along with selling the products,” says Volle. “The events are very important to create relationships between the customers and the brands.”

“The big trend in green and organic beauty is very important in Los Angeles as it is in France. French girls are more and more interested in organic products. They want to know about what they’re putting on their face and body, and it fits with the French lifestyle.”

Los Angeles Rive Gauche isn’t the first major in-store exhibition assembled by Le Bon Marché. The retailer previously dedicated temporary space to Paris, Japan, Brazil, Brooklyn and Italy installations. It spares little expense cultivating an immersive store environment to replicate the aesthetics and attitude of the chosen destination inside its walls. At Los Angeles Rive Gauche, a levitating skateboard pipe, for instance, transports LA’s skateboard culture to the department store. Sculptural palm trees are sprinkled throughout the merchandise.

Encompassing some 200 brands across beauty, apparel, food, accessories and home goods, the Los Angeles Rive Gauche assortment at Le Bon Marché is divided into sunrise, sunlight and sunset displays. Each element speaks to a distinct mood and time that necessitates distinct products. Volle points out beauty brands have a strong presence in the sunrise portion devoted to health and self-care because it contains a wellness area with the likes of Goop, Odacité and Vintner’s Daughter. Sunlight is beach-oriented, and Mermaid is housed within it. Sunset plays up LA glamour, and Philip B, Lauren B and Ouai are in situated in Sunset.

So far, Odacité, Skin Gym and Goop have been the bestselling beauty brands at Los Angeles Rive Gauche. Volle reasons Odacité’s French connection (its founder Valerie Grandury is from Paris), Goop’s prominence and Skin Gym’s position in a rising tools category garnering media attention are responsible for the brands’ popularity. Brands successful at Le Bon Marché during Los Angeles Rive Gauche will be considered for the retailer’s selection after the installation.

Brands are certainly aware Los Angeles Rive Gauche is an audition of sorts for Le Bon Marché. “We are looking for our new home in Paris and hope Le Bon Marché will be it beyond the LA exhibition,” says Grandury, mentioning Odacité was available at Colette in Paris until the iconic shop closed last year. She continues, “I’m a fan of Le Bon Marché. I think this is a department store that has reinvented the retail experience. The expertise of the staff, the trendsetting eye of the buyers, the curation of products and the extraordinary creative team is what makes Le Bon Marché stand apart from all the rest.”

“This is a department store that has reinvented the retail experience. The expertise of the staff, the trendsetting eye of the buyers, the curation of products and the extraordinary creative team is what makes Le Bon Marché stand apart from all the rest.”

For Ranavat Botanics, Los Angeles Rive Gauche has been impetus to meet with European retailers outside of Le Bon Marché that could appropriate for it. “It was a good first step to allow to test the market. Honestly, the fact that they [Le Bon Marché] accepted me is a good indication of what the French consumer is looking for,” says Ranavat. “I’ve always been inspired by France, and I feel like the packaging, although Indian, has a Parisian vibe to it that I really love. It was nice to see people pick up on that.”

Quinn Castro visited Paris for the opening of Los Angeles Rive Gauche at Le Bon Marché and was honored to spot Los Feliz Botanicals among the carefully-orchestrated collection of LA brands. “It was a thrill to be selling our truly Californian perfumes in the historic perfume capital of the world. It was so fun, as a consumer and admirer of so many LA-based brands, to see so many of my favorite things in this wonderful space…They even had La Croix in the mini fridge! They really got our number,” she says. “I hope Los Feliz Botanicals’ inclusion in the installation will not only legitimize all-natural perfumes, but also bring the California lifestyle to an even larger platform.”

Feature image photo credit: Gabriel de la Chapelle