El Palacio de Hierro

Origins

In the 1850s, French immigrant Victor Gassier opened a clothing store, Las Fábricas de Francia (The Factories of France), not related with the currently operating Fábricas de Francia chain. In 1860, Gassier teamed up with Alexander Reynaud, forming a business called Gassier & Reynaud. In 1876, José Tron, his brother Henri and José Leautaud bought in, forming the association ''V. Gassier & Reynaud, Sucs. S. en C.''. In 1879 the business' formal name was changed to J. Tron y Cía. (J. Tron and Co), but continued to trade as Las Fábricas de Francia.

Tron and Leautaud's business kept growing and in 1879, they started plans to build a store in Mexico City along the lines of the upscale stores that had already opened in Paris by that time, such as Le Bon Marché. In 1888 they bought the land to build their store, and later hired the Mexican architect Ignacio de la Hidalga to build a five-story building, the first in Mexico City made of iron and steel. As such, people who passed by would ask "what iron palace (palacio de hierro) are they building?". In 1891, when construction finished, Tron and Leautaud decided to rename the business El Palacio de Hierro, taking advantage of the publicity earned during construction.

On April 15, 1914 a fire destroyed the building. Other buildings were then used. As the Mexican Revolution made immediate reconstruction difficult or impossible, it took until 1921 to open the new store. French architect Paul Dubois designed the store in art nouveau style, featuring dual stained-glass ceilings by Jacques Grüber[1] (1870-1936) of Nancy, France, and which opened for business on October 14, 1921.[4][5]

Nowadays, El Palacio de Hierro is part of Grupo BAL, a Mexican conglomerate with interests in insurance, mining and retail.

Product lines

Product lines are broader than those carried by U.S. department stores today, including full ranges of electronics (televisions, laptops, cellphones), large home appliances (white goods, small appliances, furniture and home furnishings and accessories, mattresses, domestics (bed linens, towels), sporting goods, books and magazines, candy, gourmet food, wines, and liquors. In-store services include restaurants, food halls, hair salons, spa services, and a travel agency.[6] However, women's, men's and children's apparel and accessories, fine jewelry, cosmetics, and fragrances, still dominate. In these areas, Palacio is the high-end chain in Mexico, compared to others such as Liverpool and Sears Mexico.

Palacio is the only Mexican department store chain that carries and in many cases, hosts in-store boutiques for, a broad range of global luxury brands. In late 2023, for example, the chain featured Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Carolina Herrera, Saint Laurent Paris, Alexander McQueen, Dolce & Gabbana, Ferragamo, Givenchy, Chloé, Balmain, Golden Goose Deluxe Brand, Moschino, and Rimowa on its website.[7] Other brands carried in recent times have included Bvlgari, Bottega Veneta, Hermès, Tiffany's, Cartier, Esprit, Max Mara, BCBG Max Azria, Emporio Armani, Fendi, Gucci, Tory Burch, Prada, Ermenegildo Zegna, Ralph Lauren, Chanel, Versace, Swarovski, Burberry, Escada, Juicy Couture. It also carries some Mexican high-end brands. But Palacio also carries many upper middle-range brands such as Emilio Pucci, Michael Kors, Tommy Hilfiger, and Spain-based Carolina Herrera, Adolfo Domínguez, Purificación García[es] and Mango.

Original downtown flagship

The original store and historic flagship (1891, rebuilt and reopened 1921), still operates along the north side of Venustiano Carranza street in the Historic center of Mexico City, one block south of the Zócalo (main square), between 5 de Febrero and 20 de Noviembre avenues.

Durango, Colonia Roma

The Durango store, on Durango street in Colonia Roma Norte, is the only other freestanding Palacio, and was the first branch store, opened in 1958. The architects José Aspe Sais and Vladimir Kaspé designed it in functionalist style, and the department store construction expert constructed the building in only 16 months. In 1967, under visionary leadership of Alberto Baillères, the Durango store was remodeled and modernized. Harper's Bazaar called it the "Store of the Century" due its modern character.[8]

Polanco flagship

Since its complete remodel and reopening in 2016, the de facto flagship store is the 4-story, 55248 sqm freestanding store in Polanco designed by architect Javier Sordo Madaleno, which the company gave the nickname "El Palacio de los Palacios", "the Palace of the Palaces").[9] The advertising campaign for the 2016 relaunch of the store was "Polanco tiene un nuevo corazón: El Palacio de los Palacios" ("Polanco has a new heart: The Palace of Palaces") and featured top models David Gandy, Isabeli Fontana and Carmen Dell'Orefice. 10,000 people attended the re-opening event on November 6, 2016. Javier Sordo Madaleno was the architect; TPG Architecture designed the interiors of the lower two floors, Gensler the upper two floors.[10]

Each floor was designed with a theme of different famous neighborhoods in Mexico City, a nickname of which is the "City of Palaces":[10]

The property originally was a mall called Molière222, opened in 1997, and included a smaller Palacio store; in 2015 the mall area was incorporated into the Palacio store as part of the US$300 million remodel and expansion.

• The ground floor, with the cosmetics area and luxury brand boutiques (with internal walls or similar features distinguishing them as separate spaces from, with distinct entrances from, the main store area. The turn-of-the-20th-century Paris-inspired Paseo de la Reforma, and the colonial Alameda Central park are the themes of this floor.
• The 1st floor up (U.S.: 2nd floor) with the women's and children's areas, recreates Lomas de Chapultepec and Polanco
• The 2nd floor up, (U.S.: 3rd floor) with the gourmet food hall, men's and technology departments, has the Roma and Condesa areas as its inspiration. The food hall is partially inside from and partially on a 1500 sqm patio with views over Polanco.
• The 3rd floor up (U.S.: 4th floor) with the home store, emulates Jardines del Pedregal

Coyoacán (Mitikah)

In 2022, a new store at the new Mítikah shopping center in Xoco neighborhoods adjacent to Coyoacán replaced the store built in 1989 just to the west at the Centro Coyoacán mall. The new Coyoacán Palacio has 5 levels and 38000 sqm of floor space in the current phase, with plans to expand to 47000 sqm. It features a 9.7 m-high crystal dome measuring 1652 sqm at its base and which uses 2100 sqft of crystal and 163 metric tons of metal.[11]

Others

There are 4 other full-line Palacio branches in Greater Mexico City, and like the Mitikah store, each anchors an upscale mall across the metropolitan area's affluent western half: Perisur (1980), Santa Fe (1993), Satélite (1998), and Interlomas (2011).

There are 6 full-line Palacio stores in the rest of the country, one each in Greater Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Querétaro, Veracruz, and Villahermosa.