Montreal isn’t particularly a huge destination for luxury brands to have their own stand alone stores, and I’m pretty sure many of you are wondering where you could find your designer brands in the right places without too much effort.
So I’ve compiled a list of places on where to shop. Please keep in mind that most of the luxury brand boutiques are NOT the flagship stores, therefore will often times only carry a select number of items from the lines. If you want to blame a store for not carrying certain shoes or dresses, you can blame the store’s buyers.
Holt Renfrew
This Canadian high-end retailer will be probably the first place you want to look for in luxury brand names. They carry most of today’s known brands including some Canadian brands. There a few stand alone boutiques for Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Armani, Hermes, Gucci, and Tiffany’s, while the rest of the brands are sharing retail space. You’ll find most of the branded shoes here including Jimmy Choo.
Ogilvy
For some reason or another, only carries a handful of designer brands and the only site to carry official Louis Vuitton handbags, among other brands located here are Burberry, Michael Kors, Aquascutum, Ports 1961 and Hugo Boss. You will also find some unique perfumery brands such as L’Artisan Parfumeur.
TNT – The New Trend
Located in Westmount, TNT tends to carry more of the bridge collections, or less popular brands like Comme Des Garcons, Martin Margiela, Helmut Lang, but you’ll still be able to find some $500+ items in there if you look thoroughly.
Reborn
Located in the Old Port, for more avant-garde pieces from Ann Demeulmeester, Alexander Wang, Natalia Brilli, Rad Hourani, and Drkshdw by Rick Owens, it’s a tiny store but with a great selection. Surely not to be disappointed
Ursula B.
Located in Les Cours Mont-Royal, Ursula B. carries more European fashion apparels including Roberto Cavalli, Pringle of Scotland, Lanvin, Balenciaga, Viktor & Rolf, and Givenchy. Mind you, a very select collection chosen carefully by the owner herself. You won’t be disappointed by their very attentive staff either.
Mona Moore
This store on the Plateau specializes in carrying a very select list of designer footwear including Jil Sander, Lanvin, Dries Van Noten, Pierre Hardy, and Ann Demeulemeester. These high priced shoes are not to be trifled with, but don’t underestimate the power of their customers, some of their ultra cute shoes are gone almost instantly.
Rosenstein Paris
The official Christian Louboutin carrier, this store also is the official home to Repetto shoes, known for their classic ballerina shoes and flats, and Lucien Pellat-Finet. They also carry a unique french perfume brand called Les Parfums de Rosine. And yes, you can also find Louboutin at Holt Renfrew as well but in far fewer numbers.
Possible new luxury destination: Le Westin Hotel
This is pure speculation on my part, but the new Le Westin Hotel in the Old Port is said to open four designer boutiques in late 2009. Let’s cross our fingers that they will be brands that we don’t have yet!
If all else fails, you’re just a bus ride away to New York City.
Image credits: Holt Renfrew, Wikipedia
This weekend I picked up both September issues for Flare and Fashion Magazine, perhaps the two most prominent Canadian fashion magazines in, well, the country. It’s a rare thing that I actually outright buy fashion magazines, I tend to stay away from them since in the end I usually throw them out.
Anyway, the thing that stood out the most in both issues was The Bay’s fall 12-page spread, in which they must’ve paid a pretty penny to insert such a monstrous ad. Fashion’s version is full page (probably cheaper since their issues was about 30% smaller than Flare’s) while Flare’s version were 3/4 pages. The ad is so big it takes up nearly all the length of my bed! Bonnie Brooks sure knows how to take advantage of the recession.
The Bay has been in the works of revamping itself to appeal back to its shoppers by creating a new look, and in their fall ad, they promise to introduce new brands as well. The ad is indeed, a chic looking one, all in black with white fonts and graphically sound. Unfortunately, some brands are only sold exclusively at the Bloor and Yorkdale stores, like L.A.M.B. and Juicy Couture, and a few others like Pink Tartan and Barbie by David Dixon are only available in “select stores.” I’m guessing that downtown Montreal’s location won’t be reaping much of the new crops for fall.
I think part of the problem lies in the shopping experience itself. The Montreal department store has an odd warehouse like feeling when shopping around, while men’s section is the opposite – buried in the metro level where the ceilings are much lower, giving an uncomfortable closed up feeling. They could benefit from revamping the space design and make it more attractive to shoppers, though that alone won’t be enough to bring them back. They need some heavy artillery marketing to lure people back to The Bay.
How does one justify the purchase of a $1000 sweater?
The conundrum boils down to this: people who have the habit of buying $1000 sweaters, and those who don’t.
Fashion is known for its disposability, a garment that’s more than two years old isn’t deemed worthy to wear in the closet anymore. Some people buy clothes and have never worn them (tag still hanging). However, this is simply generalizing. There could be plenty of people who have bought clothes years ago and still wear them today. And it’s funny how we judge so severely on items that we personally value as “worth it” or “not worth it”.
Pringle of Scotland Cashmere sweater
Such is the case for designer clothing and their thousand dollar price tag, the nay-sayers who are just fine with shopping at regular mass consumer stores like H&M, The Gap and Banana Republic, wouldn’t dare dream of buying a pair of boots costing over $1000. But they will spend such money on things they think are worth it like cars and vacations. It’s really the same kind of spending, the only difference is the perception of value. Thus really, not that different from buying a $1000 sweater.
If you can compare that to an all-inclusive vacation where over the course of one week on the beach, sleeping, tanning, and consuming all-you-can-eat buffets, will be worth your dime. A sweater will certainly last you much longer than one week, in fact it will last you years, and you love that sweater because you spent $1000 on it. Sure, you’re not on some exotic beach with the sun, but again, different perception of value.
For those who have the habit of buying high end brands are usually the wealthier consumers or consumers who have a large amount of disposable income – much like the Japanese since they don’t even have to buy houses and cars for lack of space. And their perception of value lies in the quality of their purchases. As computer geeks will no doubt spill forth thousands for the latest computer technology, they will not settle for an e-Machine but rather a Dell or a Mac. One doesn’t buy a regular tv set (probably worth less than $200 these days) anymore but a stylish flat panel widescreen tv costing well over $700. Who has pagers anymore? iPhones and Blackberry are hot commodities.I could go on and on about perception of value, stamp and coin collections being two prime examples, but I’ll stop here.
Thus, I have to say that I did purchase a $1000 sweater at Ursula B last week. I wasn’t quite sure how to feel about it as the abstract notion of spending seemed far more mind-boggling than the actual purchase itself. And this wasn’t done on the fly. I had spent a good 45 mins with the sales lady trying on sweaters upon sweaters, from Lanvin to Balenciaga. And she was very nice, we had great conversation and I even helped her button up the cardigans I had just tried on while talking about different brands. It’s the kind of service you rarely receive, and even I myself felt so comfortable with her that I was even doing things I realized I never do in a store, helping the sales lady fold and button up clothes, I mean who does that, really? Most of the clothes didn’t really fit to my liking, too big on the shoulders, or the sleeves were too long, or left me white hairs all over my black skirt.
It wasn’t until I slipped on a Viktor & Rolf black turtleneck sweater made of 100% virgin wool, not really what I was looking for (a cashmere sweater), but the detailing pleats in the shoulders and the fit was so perfect, I couldn’t help but admire myself in the mirror. It was a little tight on the neck but will probably stretch out over time. My emotions won me over: I had to have it. Even at the price tag’s obvious ostentatious amount, I figured that life was too short to dwell upon details like money. I think I may have to think about money when I’m really down in the slammer, but I still won’t regret buying the turtleneck.
It was only later that learned that Ursula B. is perhaps the only place carrying Pringle of Scotland knit sweaters, and I’ve been dying to own one of their cashmere sweaters for some time now. I just don’t think I can afford any more big purchases for the rest of the year. The store is so minimalistic there’s not even a need for a cash register, only a credit card machine. It was then that I noticed that the owner (I was assuming since she rang up my purchase) had a classic Togo Hermes Birkin bag in gray on the counter, and had an interesting conversation with her about Hermes. It was also later when I perused Ursula B’s website that she had on one of the runway outfits, the gray pleated dress. Definitely the owner.
Thus concludes my adventure and thought process of buying a 1K sweater. My credit card isn’t maxed out and I will be able to clear anyhow within 2 months time.
Image credits: Pringle of Scotland, Net-a-porter
Last night’s Fantasme event was a pretty big success considering the last minute venue change from The Darling Foundry to SAT on St-Laurent. It was perhaps the best congregation of stylish Montrealers that I’ve ever witnessed in my life. A true street style photographer’s wet dream.
The mash up of the 80s trends with strong shoulders, boyfriend jackets teamed with mini dresses, strappy booties galore, and several men dressed in high heels and skinny jeans and rockin’ the casbah. I envied them as even I wouldn’t be able to walk in their fabulous shoes.
Where have you guys been hiding all this time??
I apologize for the lack of photos, I’m not exactly papparazzi skilled.
Fantasme is a collaboration between Andrew Ly and Melissa Matos, both a fashion designer and a jewelry designer respectively. Conceptually, it was a multi sensorial experience they wanted to project to the audience with video and audio projections and of course, a fashion show. It is their first show collaboration but they both have shared the stylist scene working for various local publications.
When asked about Ly’s ideas behind his collection, he had stated about the “complexity of simplicity”, where garments were stripped to their very essentials – such as a jacket only joined at the arms and not the shoulders, or leggings represented by strappy, stretchy bandages around the legs, as well as the geometry of garments such as an architectural caged skirt.
Matos’ collection was created in conjunction to her jewelry designs for PowerHaus, although it was the first time creating a clothing collection, she too made allusions to the semblance of garments as coiled pearls were wrapped around the arms to create a sleeve effect. She described the soft flowy see-through tops as armor that people wear, separating their self with the world.
But what about commercial purposes?
Ly’s response was that any fashion creation has a commercial purpose in the sense that it can be sold to those who are interested in buying. If there is a demand, they’d be more than happy to provide. Imran Amed, chief editor of The Business of Fashion, was in attendance and he had wondered during the presentation as to why would they show a fashion collection outside of season. Matos responds in true Montreal spirit: why not? Why not show a fashion show out of the season, instead of designated fashion weeks? As most natives know, Montreal follows its own creative beat.
We’re not expecting mass production here, this is still a showcasing event of concepts and ideas, and Fantasme fulfilled its purpose that night.
I had contributed with Business of Fashion on a few occasions, and was delighted to meet Imran in person. We chatted for a bit about his “Canadian tour”, as well of an upcoming project concerning BoF. While seated and waiting for the show to start, I had realized I sat next to Rad Hourani, whom I’ve interviewed through email for BoF and had yet to meet him in person. Exciting! Imran caught up with him and chatted about his upcoming show in New York. I had the opportunity to squeeze in a couple of curious questions like how he came to collaborate with Tommy Ton, of Jak and Jil Blog, which apparently they’ve known each other a few years and that they happened to bump into one another at a show. Small world! He also spoke about his admiration for Cathy Horyn of The NY Times and Suzy Menkes of IHT as how these women really knew fashion and know how to write about it. My idols. I felt incredibly lucky that night to have met both of them.
Other guests naturally included Canadian fashion editors from Flare, Loulou, Fashion, and The Gazette, and some local fashion designers like Denis Gagnon and Yso, whom I wasn’t sure if it was really him (was later confirmed on Twitter) and he had this amazing sparkly (sequined?) white jacket and the smoothest skin ever. Amazing.
Image credits: me! and Melissa Matos
My little soiree at StyleXchange and Little Burgundy totally opened up my eyes to new shoe designs that are beyond that high end mark. After a while of perusing through endless booties and stilettos that cost thousands of dollars, it’s kind of refreshing to see that even at an affordable price point, really nice things can be executed still with style and consistency.
Which is the case with Melissa Plastic Dreams, a Brazilian shoe brand who makes shoes out of sustainable, eco-friendly plastic shoes. Although new to me, Zaha Hadid (the designer) has been in the business for over 25 yrs, winning coveted awards, appearing in numerous magazine (including Frame Magazine, which is my “mecca” of architecture and design magazines) and even released capsule collections for Vivienne Westwood Anglomania.
The shoe designs are cute and have distinct shapes, some models are repeated with different colors and patterns or with slight modifications, pretty much like what Christian Louboutin is doing with his own collections, only they cost a fraction of the price. You won’t find any super high stiletto pairs, however you will find the cutest flats and wedged models, giving them an aesthetic of timeless modern shoes.
Her velvet shoes are also an exclusive patent she created for velvet lovers, which are water-resistant and keep that nice little shine that velvet usually tends to give off.
To say the least, the shoes are amazing and if it weren’t for last night, I wouldn’t have discovered Melissa and wished they had the full line since there are so many pairs I would definitely buy.
Currently, I only know of Little Burgundy carrying some models as well as Boutique U&I. Melissa is set to have a new online shop soon, although it doesn’t say if it’ll be open to Canadian residents, let’s cross our fingers that it will!
Image credits: Melissa Plastic Dreams
