Lafayette Gallery in Berlin. The Galeries Lafayette (French pronunciation: ?[?al?i lafaj?t]) is an upmarket French department store company located on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. In 2009, Galeries Lafayette recorded earnings of over one billion euro. It is a part of the company Groupe Galeries Lafayette. In 1895, Théophile Bader and his cousin Alphonse Kahn opened a fashion store in a small haberdasher's shop at the corner of rue La Fayette and the Chaussée d'Antin, in Paris.[1] In 1896, their company purchased the entire building at n°1 rue La Fayette; in 1905 they acquired the buildings at n°38, 40 and 42, boulevard Haussmann and n°15 rue de la Chaussée d'Antin. Bader commissioned the architect Georges Chedanne and his pupil Ferdinand Chanut to design the store at the Haussmann location, where a glass and steel dome and Art Nouveau staircases were finished in 1912.