Nouvelle Vague

The Champs-Elysées is going luxe, to the consternation of Parisians.

In this edition:

• The luxification of the Champs-Elysées

• AmfAR Cannes Gala news and a bit of Liz Taylor hilarity

• The Met Gala pre-game gossip

Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg on the Champs-Elysées in Jean-Luc-Godard’s Breathless.

The French daily Le Parisien reported this week that the UGC Normandie, one of the last big-screen theaters in Paris, which first opened on the Avenue des Champs-Elysées in 1937, is closing. So is the FNAC flagship—the city’s go-to for books and electronics on the avenue for 27 years. This follows the shuttering last year of the Disney Store, after 30 years of business, and the Gaumont Champs-Elysées Marignan cinema, which opened in 1933, and the closure of the UGC George V cinema in 2020, after 82 years of operation.

What’s up? A luxury redo of the world's most famous shopping street, that’s what.