Boutiques? No. Magnifique? Oui.

It may be the birthplace of fashion, but when it comes to stylish architecture and home decor, the City of Light has been going through some dark times. Over the last several decades, the landscape of French design -- which was world-class in the 1950s -- has become unremittingly stark. Only Philippe Starck, the whimsical, bad-boy Parisian now famous for his New York hotel interiors and a line of housewares for Target, had caused any kind of commotion in French design.

Suddenly, Starck has company. This spring, three unveilings -- a lavish hotel that resembles a 1930s Hollywood set and two theatrically lighted home decor stores that look and feel like futuristic arcades -- have brought an exciting architectural integrity and interior design energy back to town. Each has created the kind of environment that could reestablish Paris as a great 21st century design center. This look may even translate into American trends.

The March opening of Maison Lafayette -- the first new department store in Paris in 35 years, and one that the parent company, Galeries Lafayette, has dedicated completely to home decor -- reflects a renewed Parisian passion for all things domestic that mirrors the American obsession with shelter magazines and TV-celebrity decorators. With the knowledge that 30% of French retail euros are spent on home products, Galeries Lafayette created Maison Lafayette, a gallery of furnishings covering more than 100,000 square feet with retail razzmatazz.

The store’s design is a clever contrast between Old World Paris and a new world order in which brands have become global status symbols. Maison Lafayette is housed in a mid-19th century structure built during the period when civil engineer Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann reinvented Paris as a city with broad boulevards and grand public buildings. The six-story building sports a mansard roof and a flat facade with wrought-iron balconies that were left intact. The inside, however, was gutted and completely renovated.

In the soaring central atrium, escalators are encased between glass walls outfitted with tiny electric lights that flash the names of brands. Unlike standard electronic message boards, this high-tech illuminated graffiti created by Ingo Maurer (the German lighting designer best known for putting feather wings on bare bulbs) is reminiscent of Tom Cruise’s trip to a futuristic Gap store in “Minority Report” -- advertising as eye candy.

While it is too soon to predict how quickly American mall planners are likely to borrow this idea, one thing is certain: Maison Lafayette may be experimenting with the concept of retailing as entertainment, but it’s doing it with the kind of elan associated with the Paris of old. Unlike the traditional room tableaux found in IKEA or Crate & Barrel, Maison Lafayette creates displays that scream live, and laugh, a little. Tropical benches and pillows sit in a grove of giant bamboo stalks, fiberglass sheep display bedding on their backs, and a store window features one of Starck’s clear acrylic Louis XIV chairs festooned with huge polka dots.

Maison Lafayette’s graphics and packaging incorporate black-on-white silhouettes of people and animals that look like the skateboard-influenced work in hip sneaker shops on La Brea and Vermont avenues.

While the design of Maison Lafayette is unabashedly contemporary, there are also updates of the European past. Tall-backed chairs in client service areas are inspired by turn-of-the-century Scottish Arts and Crafts architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Neoclassical wrought-iron banisters also add a sense of history to the Modernist environment.

The global approach is reflected in the merchandise, much of which is changed every three weeks. There are international foods at counters, gondolas filled with colorful items, and tables of travel gadgets and miniature electronics organized by color or function.

“We see this as a large, living house,” explains Paul Delaoutre, director of Galeries Lafayette Paris. “We have five floors for all the new trends and novelties. We can mix audacious with charming, luxury with accessibility.”

The store that will compete with Maison Lafayette for the attention of the trend-conscious French is the newly relaunched Publicis Drugstore, a Parisian icon that first opened in 1958. Generations ago, the original version introduced Parisians to a shocking concept: Behind its doors, which were open until midnight and also on Sundays, patrons who were accustomed to having to go to specialty stores could visit a bistro, a newsstand, a gift shop and, yes, a pharmacy under one roof.

After closing for two years to perform, as the French say, “a relooking” under the direction of Frank Gehry disciple Michele Saee, the enterprise familiarly known as Le Drugstore reopened in February. The front of the building, once very ‘60s glass-and-steel, is now covered with futuristic tubes of glass formed into curvaceous sculptures that flicker and glow. The new version provides an outdoor light show that competes with the nearby Eiffel Tower each night.

Inside, Le Drugstore still boasts a pharmacy, an international newsstand, a bookstore and open shelves filled with beauty products, home accessories and designs by hip product designer Marc Newson. There’s also a coffee shop and a bistro created by famed French chef Alain Ducasse. The ladies’ room even received a racy redo, with exterior walls that appear to be transparent and become opaque only when the door is locked.

If Le Drugstore and Maison Lafayette represent a new, Modernist chapter in Parisian retail, the Hilton Arc de Triomphe that opened this month achieves a high-water mark in chic by taking a page from Art Deco ocean liner glamour. This same aesthetic is also surfacing among contemporary Los Angeles designers influenced by the style of pre-World War II decorators such as William Haines, the architect of the newly popular Hollywood Regency look.

A huge departure from the Hiltons most Americans know, the Arc de Triomphe is a masterful re-creation of refined ‘30s style -- when a hotel was meant to be neither chintz cozy nor Zen minimal.

The general architect, Stanislas Fiszer, rebuilt what was once a Parisian police station, setting out to reflect Paris in the ‘30s, with tributes to New York and Chicago. The goal was a grand hotel that floated between two worlds, just as the ocean liners once did.

Though the exterior is somewhat understated, the interior architecture is grand and glitzy.

The public space on the ground floor surrounds a courtyard lined with palm trees and bas-relief brick walls in a striking Art Deco pattern copied from a 1930s building in Chicago. The lobby is more than 40 feet high and lined with replicas of chairs built for the Normandie’s 1935 maiden voyage.

Rather than knocking off a cookie-cutter version of Art Deco, the Hilton corporation turned to the work of Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann, the father of French Art Deco.

As is customary in grand hotels, a central staircase of ironwork curls into banisters and rails, much of it inset with Ruhlmann pieces shown in a 1925 exhibition and acquired by the Hilton organization. The hotel also bought the rights to Ruhlmann furniture designs, which have been faithfully reproduced for each guest room.

Jacques Garcia, who became one of the most sought-after designers in Paris after creating a trendy, nouveau-bourgeois look for the early ‘90s Paris hotel and restaurant projects of brothers Jean-Louis and Gilbert Costes, served as chief interior designer.

Garcia’s influence has already been felt in America -- he recently debuted a collection of furniture for Baker, an upscale U.S. manufacturer. For the Hilton, he created ebony furniture, doors with ‘30s-style etched glass and crystal chandeliers.

The result is Paris with a Hollywood accent, complete with palm trees and a movie-handsome staff whose motto is “Cha-cha-cha,” a slangy French shorthand for the L.A. mantra “Have a nice day.”