Camper reopens opposite Paris Opéra

Madrid – Amid the excitement of the latest edition of Paris Fashion Week, Spanish brand Camper has reopened its boutique at number eight, Place de l’Opéra. The store, situated at the foot of the historic Paris Opéra building, has resumed operations with a completely revamped image and shopping experience.

Camper views its global stores as more than just points-of-sale. They are vehicles for showcasing the brand's commitment to contemporary design and new avenues of exploration, not just for selling its footwear and fashion. This philosophy has led to diverse collaborations with a wide range of creatives, both for product development and for designing key retail spaces. The Place de l'Opéra store in Paris is one such location. It has undergone an extensive refurbishment to implement a design by the Italian architecture and interior design studio, Piovenefabi. This positions the studio as Camper's latest architectural collaborator. The partnership aims to elevate the brand's identity and customer experience through projects by avant-garde creatives who can forge new relationships between product, architecture, and the urban environment.

“Our stores are one of the purest expressions of Camper as a design brand,” emphasises Miguel Fluxà, chief executive officer of Camper, in a statement shared by the Spanish fashion multinational. He made these remarks after the store's reopening party on Monday, September 28, which coincided with the start of Paris Fashion Week. Fluxà concluded by highlighting that for Camper, “each project is an opportunity to collaborate with architects whose vision challenges conventions while remaining faithful to our identity.” He added that the “Opéra store perfectly reflects this ambition, uniting architecture, craftsmanship, and our long-standing connection with Paris.”

Permeable store in the heart of Haussmann's Paris

The store is located in one of Paris's most emblematic areas, shaped by the urban renewal plan designed by Baron Haussmann for Emperor Napoleon III. It sits at the base of a historicist Haussmannian building, a style defined by monumental facades, symmetrical lines, wrought-iron balconies, and neoclassical details. This architectural approach enhances the urban landscape, overshadowing any minor inconsistencies or individual character. This was a key objective of the renewal plan. Consequently, it remains challenging to capture the attention of pedestrians near the Paris Opéra without creating visual displays that clash with the sober and magnificent Haussmannian atmosphere.

To address these complexities, the Piovenefabi studio designed a 'permeable' store for the renovation. The flagship is located just steps from Zara's first Paris store, which opened in 1990, and the iconic Galeries Lafayette Haussmann building. Its glass facade acts as a delicate veil between the interior and exterior. This independence is emphasised by a mirrored ceiling, reminiscent of a Parisian bistro, which reflects the urban scene inside. An internal structure of curved and vertical planes serves as a display module for the brand's collection. Piovenefabi elevated the store's spatial identity to a design piece by hand-decorating the structure's surfaces with curved, wavy lines in red and yellow, the corporate colours of the Mallorcan footwear and fashion brand.

Moving away from its rigid character, “the Haussmannian facade provides a flexible framework” for the store's entrance, which opens into a “double-height” space that “establishes a dialogue between the scale of the city and the grandeur of the Opéra,” notes Giovanni Piovene, founding partner of Piovenefabi. “Instead of viewing the shop window as a border, the project conceives it as an interface between the city and the interior,” he adds. “With this exercise, we wanted to extend the public experience into the retail space and vice versa. For us, entering the store should be like stepping into a hand-drawn sketch, into a drawing.” This impression is actively created by the composition of lines 'printed' onto the internal structure.

“Composed of freehand strokes, it was painted directly onto the wood by hand, rather than being mechanically printed,” explains Ambra Fabi, founding partner of the Italian studio Piovenefabi. “This artisanal process gives the surface a unique depth, warmth, and subtle imperfection that could never be achieved through industrial production,” she argues. Together with the planar structure, this composition forms the single entity around which the space and commercial offering of the renovated Camper store are structured.

New chapter with Abraham Ortuño as creative director

Camper's renewed commitment to design, Paris, and the French market, demonstrated by this boutique's renovation and reopening, marks the beginning of a new chapter for the Spanish company starting in 2027. The new year will signal a new phase of development for the Spanish house, following the conclusion of the transitional year of 2026.

This year serves to conclude the celebrations for Camper's 50th anniversary, a milestone marked in 2025, with the recent launch of a commemorative book this September. It also lays the groundwork for the brand's next chapter. In this new era, Camper will continue to champion design as a hallmark of its stores and collections. The first designs from Abraham Ortuño will be presented at the start of 2027. Ortuño is the founder and creative director of Abra, which is participating in the current Paris Fashion Week, and the new global creative director for Camper and Camperlab.