Cheap Paris Boutiques
 

I am an 18 year old girl from Michigan and will be traveling to Paris with my mom in less than a month. We LOVE shopping. We are hoping to have some names of cute boutiques that have reasonable prices on clothing. (We don't want the typical souvenir stores). We want clothing boutiques that the locals go to and that are undiscovered by the typical tourist.
Thanks

The local boutiques that are undiscovered by tourists are not going to be cheap unless they are ethnic stores where local Africans and Asians shop, or unless they are second-hand shops, and even those in Paris can be expensive.

Well are there any local stores you would suggest?

Lisa, don't worry about what other people do/don't do. Think about what you want to do/see/experience in Paris and do those things. Unless it is part of an international./national chain, all of the stores will be local.

In general, you will find prices to be higher in Paris than at home.

Not "boutiques" but fun, I enjoy having a look in Monoprix locations, kind of the French version of Target, all over the city.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer...GpYxBDC0&hl=en

There are cheap stores for teens or younger women, sort of like what you'd expect at home (chains), like H&M or Zara. But they have stores all over Paris, so in the center tourists will be at them. H&M isn't French anyway (nor Zara). What's your idea of reasonable?

try Pimkie, Promod and Naf Naf. Promod is kind of like a smaller H&M (but is French). I think all these chains are on bd St Michel in the first few blocks frome the Seine, among other places. There is a mall at Montparnasse tower with a lot of chain shops like these, and I think they are in there, also. There are certainly tourists there but not as many as on bd ST Michel. These stores are probably along the Champs-Elysees, also, but plenty of tourists there. Oh, I forgot, Kookai is also a boutique clothign store that skews young.

If you want some discount/seconds stores and an area with fewer tourists, go to rue Alesia, starting at the metro stop by that name -- walk west. info http://girlsguidetoparis.com/shopping-paris-less-yes/

Lisamariana
Check out any of the Super Monoprix stores for inexpensive basic t-shirts, turtlenecks, sweaters and scarves - cosmetics and costume jewelry, too - that you can perhaps accent with a boutique find, lessening the cost of an outfit.

Galleries Lafayette and Au Printemps Department Stores, while certainly not boutiques, will have a huge selection of choice in a wide range of pricing, with "special offerings". I happened upon a large display of scarves at AP last time I was there for around 19 euro (made in China).

HEMA shops are also good for inexpensive cosmetics, nail polish and costume jewelry.

Happy shopping!

Thank you Christina, and travelchat. Great ideas!

Take a look at shopping on rue de Commerce for less expensive fashion.

http://www.parisiensalon.com/2012/06...sure-in-paris/

http://www.parisperfect.com/blog/201...e-du-commerce/


Enjoy Paris.

Call me crazy, but either the OP has never consulted any blogs, guide books or magazine articles
- OR -
is busy compiling information so she can write one herself...

They should take that Michigander guide PalenQ with them.

All great suggestions but almost all are big chains that sell the same stuff found in all big cities of Europe and well discovered by tourists. Cheap and boutique are difficult to find together without being tourist crap.

StCirq is spot on.

For shoes my wife goes to Marionnaud.

Galerie Lafayette offer a discount card for international visitors-just go to the welcome desk and ask about it-you'll need your passport or other proof.
Also if buying a a large amount(moneywise) at one store you can get VAT refund forms.
There are shoe stores that are French or least European that you don't see in other places.

Forget the discount at Galerie, they "red dot" (exclude) just about everything you would actually want. Spend time on the little streets in the 6th-7th and you'll find plenty. Remember the Moscow Rule of Shopping: once you leave the store, you most definitely will not return to it, so if you like it, get it!

Look for Bensimon sneakers.

The cheapest and most stylish clothes shops aimed at 15-25 yos in the Paris agglomeration self-evidently aren't "boutiques"

The absolutely stylishest and cheapest are the Primark stores at La Garenne, Creteil and Centre Commercial O'Parinor (type "paris" into the search box at http://www.primark.com/en/our-stores ). Typically about 30% cheaper than Old Navy would be for clothes analogous to ON's charm-free schlock (but clothes that, unlike what ON sells, you can face your friends seeing you in), and about 40% cheaper than H&M.

Admittedly, the clothes are mostly identical to Primarks elsewhere in southern Europe and a couple of US East Coast locations. But if you live in Michigan, the nearest branch is about 1,000 miles away, so the point's irrelevant.

Jamikins, being North American, simply doesn't know what she's talking about when she says "Cheap and boutique are difficult to find together without being tourist crap". Primark pay hundreds of serious designers and engineers to provide precisely that - and none of it's "tourist crap"

Neither, though they're pricier, are clothes at the Inditex brands (Zara, Bershka, Stradivarius, Massimo Dutti and Pull & Bear) Even though I believe there's a Zara in Michigan, the clothes change so fast your local branch won't have what's around Paris. It's also worth looking for the H&M fascias (like Cheap Monday and Monki) in Paris that aren't in America.

There's absolutely no need to put up with the menopausal tat in Galleries Lafayette.

Do remember that marked prices include VAT, which you get back on leaving the EU ONLY if the clothes haven't been worn.

I would hardly call primark boutique Flanner. It's a chain.

Sounds to me like the OP is looking for the rue d'Alésia near the eponymous métro station. The street is lined with "stock" boutiques -- stores that carry off-price clothing/goods, usually from the previous year's styles.

I don't think whether something is a boutique or not has anything to do with it being a chain, these are two different things. A chain just means there is more than one store, generally quite a few, and often in various countries. Chanel is a chain, but they certainly call their stores "boutiques", if you go to their website you can search for locations of their "boutiques". Promod calls its stores boutiques, also. I suppose if some owner only had two shops in one city, you wouldn't call that a chain, but Chanel has 100s, I imagine (2 in NYC alone).
Exhibit A, Promod's website, see upper LH http://www.promod.com/

A boutique is just a small specialty store, that's all, not a grand dept store which sells all kinds of things.

Some people use the term boutique to mean expensive, I guess. In hotel threads, a lot of people just use it to mean small and independently owned, it has nothing to do with design nor cost. Of course, the word is French and in French just means shop.