French Window

“I have staged everything you could imagine,” Mr. Dehix said of his Christmas displays, which over the years have also graced Le Bon Marché on the Left Bank and the now-defunct Samaritaine. For a few years in the 1990s, he was responsible for the holiday windows of all four rival stores — a feat that required not just Olympian stamina, but the discretion of a palace butler.

Swimming Barbies. Racing ostriches. Tightrope-walking cats. Cabarets of dancing kitchen utensils. The elaborate shows take nearly a year to prepare and draw crowds so large on holiday shopping weekends that the stores long ago installed sidewalk viewing platforms.

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