Celio launches new grand scale concept at Paris’s Forum des Halles

Celio is breathing new life into its “normal” universe with the opening of a 1,200-square-metre flagship store on level -1 of the Forum des Halles shopping centre in central Paris. The brand will sit alongside Lacoste and Herschel, Finsbury and Sandro. For the first time, it will test a mixed-gender offer within its new concept. A major player in French menswear, the brand announced on Monday the roll-out of its new store concept.

Since launching its “Be Normal” communications campaign five years ago, the brand has worked to surprise its customers and attract new ones with dynamic capsule collections themed around manga, a more refined assortment—most notably its winter capsule with Chamonix-Mont-Blanc—and collaborations with personalities, such as content creator Inoxtag last year and automotive influencer GMK this year. In 2025, this transformation will take shape with a new concept that redefines the codes of the Celio store.

The first signs of this evolution emerged in summer 2024, when Celio president Marc Grosman and CEO Sébastien Bismuth inaugurated the first store offering a combined Celio–Camaïeu range at the Euralille centre.

With large shopfronts, abundant light, open space, numerous mannequins, several large screens and the use of natural materials, the brand is moving away from its red-and-white concept. Tested since this summer at Les Quatre Temps in La Défense, the concept has begun rolling out across the Westfield shopping centre network, with recent deployments at Westfield Aéroville and Westfield Val d’Europe.

“The opening of our store at La Défense marked a decisive first step in the deployment of our new concept. With the Forum des Halles store, right in the heart of Paris, we’re scaling up. This 1,200-square-metre store doesn’t just reprise the codes of our concept: it evolves them, adapts them and enriches them,” said Bismuth, in a press release.

“The Forum is also the place where, for the first time on a large Parisian footprint, we’re rolling out our womenswear offer. It’s a pivotal step that affirms our ambition to become a global player, capable of serving all customers, men and women alike, with the same high standards and creativity. I’m convinced that a concept should never be set in stone or duplicated identically.”

The foundations of this new concept were developed with Celio’s teams and experts who have long been associated with the brand—founded in 1978 by the Grosman brothers—namely Laura Chavy, founder of Ateliers AUAV, and Olivier Saguez, founder of the Saguez & Partners agency.

“This new concept is part of a dynamic of continuous progress. It reflects our desire to offer customers ever greater clarity, modernity and shopping comfort,” said Amanda Desravines, senior consultant in charge of the concept at Celio.

The concept does not break with the existing brand universe across the network of 280 French stores—particularly on level -3 at the Forum des Halles—but rather represents an evolution that builds on the brand’s key strengths.

“Inside, a pared-back, elegant and structured environment is organised around omnipresent metal that neutralises the surroundings to better reveal the quality of the products—their materials, colours and cuts. Wood, integrated into the service areas, brings warmth and comfort, creating a modern, accessible, high-quality showcase,” the brand explains in its press release.

Pragmatically, Bismuth’s team intends to leverage certain elements of the concept—such as metal fixtures, lighting, screens and micro-architecture—to gradually align the existing network with the ambience of these new outlets, without having to invest in a complete store overhaul. Beyond modernisation, management also appears to be banking on more spacious stores, enabling a deeper assortment, as in Dijon where the brand is expanding, even as several stores in smaller towns closed during the year and the company also took over a number of Jennyfer outlets.

This strategy of larger stores aligns with the presentation of different lines and also reflects the French company’s intention to further test its dual-gender potential, with Celio for men and Be Camaïeu for women. The womenswear offer was available in twenty Bi-store outlets under the Be Camaïeu banner. At the Forum des Halles, it will benefit from even greater exposure, in a centre that attracted over 62 million visitors last year.

“What we’re building with Celio is not a standard model, but a living vision of retail, capable of adjusting to each location and revealing its potential. It’s in this spirit that we initiated a bespoke collaboration between our architect Laura Chavy and Olivier Saguez, to create a store that fully reflects the Forum’s ambition,” said the brand’s general manager. “It’s by constantly reinventing ourselves that we reinforce a brand’s desirability. And other upcoming projects will continue to explore this path.”

The company, which will continue to develop the brand in new markets with partners, says it will communicate its 2025 results in a few weeks’ time.

Celio reported sales close to 600 million euros in 2023 and confirmed slight growth in 2024. The brand has more than 1,200 stores worldwide. As a sign of its development, the group’s logistics partner is due to finalise, in early 2026, an expansion of more than 12,000 square metres at its warehouse in the Oise region, bringing the site to nearly 55,000 square metres.