Bon Marché Rive Gauche: safeguarding the oral memory of the Parisian department store

Client

Bon Marché Rive Gauche

Expertise implemented
(Re)constitution of collections

BACKGROUND

Aristide and Marguerite Boucicaut founded Paris’s first department store in 1852. As the Boucicauts transformed an existing novelty shop into a model of commercial innovation, Le Bon Marché revolutionised the high street. The original building grew to become the epitome of modern retail, offering customers fixed prices, home delivery, sales, and even mail-order shopping. Aristide and Marguerite were also dedicated philanthropists who prioritised the well-being of their employees: the couple created a provident fund and provided free medical care. Today, Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche is celebrating over 170 years of history.

Challenges

As a specialist in the collection and promotion of oral history, Arkhênum was commissioned by Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche to collect oral testimonies. The project’s aim was to set up and organise Le Bon Marché’s archive collection and document the creation of its artistic direction. This work resulted in two video interviews, one with Frédéric Bodenes, Artistic and Image Director of Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche and La Grande Épicerie de Paris, and the other with Monica Burckhardt, Curator of the Toys Department of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, who was behind the initial work on the department store’s heritage collections.

Preserving the collective memory of an iconic institution

Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche sought to preserve these two oral testimonies which document an important chapter in its history. With filming complete, Arkhênum produced chronological, thematic and analytical indexes that allow users to search the videos, either by keywords or time segments. The archived voices of the two employees can also be used in the department store’s future heritage promotion projects. These recordings supplement the company’s heritage archive collection.

In situ filming

The Arkhênum team filmed the interviews on site at Le

Bon Marché Rive Gauche. An oral-archives specialist

led the interviews using questionnaires tailored to each participant.

Every page turned is an archived story