The Montreal High End Shopping Guide
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
Marc Jacobs and Holt Renfrew Collaboration
There’s an exclusive Holt Renfrew collaboration with American designer Marc Jacobs out today in Montreal called “Don’t Miss The Marc”. The capsule collection pieces consist of some albeit kooky looking cartoon prints and colorfully stripped tights, and wild print shirts, all set at an affordable price point of under $200.
Creative as he may be, I just don’t get Marc Jacobs. Sometimes he’ll come out with some really nice designs, but I guess I’m one of the rare few who doesn’t catch the hype. Knock yourselves out.
Image credits: Teen Vogue
[Via Clin D'Oeil, Fashion Magazine, Teen Vogue]
I Want, Therefore I Click
As I’m clicking through Net-a-porter, my now #1 stop to dream and contemplate a purchase, has made me realize a couple of more reasons as to why this site is such a success.
Namely, it is a fashion magazine and online store rolled into one. Quite obvious I know, but a deeper contemplation made me realize that online stores in general do not necessarily have the written editorial to tout their new products in a magazine format. Think of reading Vogue and be able to buy exactly what they’re saying is the hottest item of the season on the spot, instead of dragging yourself to the store, hope the store actually carries the item, if not, special order, and go through all the hooplahs one might go through to get the item.
We’re a lazy generation. I admit that many of you probably enjoy the going through the entire “hunting” experience of getting what you want, but I think it’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore our need for instant gratification.
Online stores like Saks, Neiman, Forever 21, Piperlime and Zappos display their array of products and merely announce new arrivals, not quite hyping them up like Net-a-porter does. It also helps that Net-a-porter suggests looks and combinations, and allows you to really zoom in and analyze in full detail parts of the garment since it isn’t possible to do so in person.
I’m not suggesting all stores should start posting online editorials - however, I wouldn’t find it too shabby as a strategy to get more people to buy the products, especially if the store is selling different brands. Holt Renfrew and Ogilvy could perhaps benefit of such a move, especially when Holts already establishes a relationship with their clients with their aggressive call-to-action weekly newsletter. If both stores could offer online shopping and free shipping delivery (for shoes to start), they could definitely boost sales in these harsh economic times. Shoppers tend to shift to online stores when the market is down, so it would only be natural to take advantage of the online medium to keep sales afloat.
With the right combination of marketing and savvy management of an online store and proper, relevant, editorial content, I think clothing stores should consider this as a Plan B.
Image Credit: Versace from Holt Renfrew
Made in Canada, Tide’s Anti-Aging Detergent, Simons Pulls Catalogue
I had originally dismissed The Globe and Mail for not reporting any worthy news on fashion other than trends, but I realize that my mistake was that I was looking in the wrong section. If you want some significant news on fashion that excludes trends and top 10 must-haves, you’ll have to venture over to the business section of most newspapers. And there you can find some pretty good articles. Apologies to the Globe and Mail, now I can’t get enough of your Report on Business section!
Which brings me to these very interesting articles that popped up in the last couple of days.
Made in Canada - An in depth look at the advantages and some tips on how to keep a Canadian business going with some examples of some companies who have learned harsh lessons throughout the year. This also highlights that despite China and India’s cheap price, in the long run, it could become more costly to make things overseas as wages will increase over time.
Procter & Gamble links laundry to fashion - Tide, owned by P&G, has come up with a new type of laundry detergent that could be called as the “anti-aging solution” for clothing. Sure it’d be great to have a detergent that didn’t destroy your clothes…but how about buying clothes made of reliable, high quality material instead of the cheap kind if you want them to last?
Sick of Slow Service, Customers Walk -This is an ever growing problem in the retail business as Canadian consumers are fed up with the slow service being offered to them. And here’s another contributing factor of the ailing department store industry:
Department stores lose the greatest amount of business because of frustrated customers leaving empty-handed, with 78 per cent of survey respondents indicating that they have left a department store because of long waiting times.
It looks to me that HBC will really have to put customer service as a priority if they want to lure customers back. It will also need to significantly exceed the kind of service you get at Holt Renfrew (which is to say discriminatory and snooty).
The Gazette (shocking, I know)
Catalogue Yanked -La Maison Simons has decided to pull it’s Fall catalogue from the shelves after receiving numerous complaints of using too thin models on its pages. Although it’s been argued that images of very thin models do not cause anorexia, it has been proven to be one of the triggers that can lead to eating disorders. Montreal has especially been aware of the image it projects to its consumers in the fashion industry and Montreal Fashion Week fully supports the use of not-so thin models. However, from my observations when I’ve been to MFW, some of those girls seemed too thin in my opinion. But kudos to Simons for taking action.
Head of Lane Crawford to be CEO of The Bay
Just 2 weeks after HBC has been acquired by Lord & Taylor, Richard Baker is moving swiftly to put some of the best retail players in the business to revamp the Hudson Bay Company. The newly appointed CEO of HBC, Bonnie Brooks (a Canadian native), was the President of the Hong Kong fashion group Lane Crawford Joyce Group since 2003.
If you’re not familiar with Lane Crawford, they are one of the most well-established department store chains in Hong Kong on par with our Canadian counterpart Holt Renfrew or Ogilvy. Under Brooks’ management, “the Lane Crawford group has tripled its business in the last five years and expanded its scope beyond Hong Kong and Macau into China, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia,” according to WWD.com.
Baker says that there’s a gap between The Bay and Holt Renfrew, and he wants to fill that gap, but many Globe and Mail commentators were skeptical. Raising the usually affordable Bay prices might drive consumers away even if they were offering a better selection of brands. This is especially true with the failed project of Complexe Les Ailes in downtown Montreal where they were offering high end brands with considerably high price points for shoppers. Toronto-based Fairweather Group bought Complexes Les Ailes in 2005 and the upper levels have since been turned into office space.
Bringing in a luxury player and turning The Bay into a brand that sits between The Bay (the old one) and Holt Renfrew will prove to be tricky. Here’s a pricing breakdown between the two.
Holt Renfrew: Carries ready-to-wear and some bridge collections. $200-$5000 on average.
The Bay: Carries fast fashion, local, and some bridge collections. $20-$300 on average.
A premium price point would probably be somewhere between $75-$1000, if they indeed intend to offer better brands. However, I don’t know why this hasn’t been mentioned but what about Simons? They clearly have that premium price point - offering unique different brands, established an attractive shopping experience, while also offering a chance to pick higher quality brands. The demographic is however geared towards 18-25 year olds, while The Bay is probably targeting 25-35 yr olds. If anything, the new Bay (or Lord & Taylor) should perhaps take a cue from Simon’s and just make the experience a little more fun and luxurious without alienating their intended consumers.
Some might scoff at the idea of paying more for clothes, but these are people who don’t care for quality or don’t know what quality clothing is. What with the way stores are churning out new stock every month, it’s no wonder the general public demand cheap clothing. But I really think all this fast fashion lifestyle will turn around bite them in the butt. Soon people will tire of keeping up with trends (especially as we get older) and we would eventually want something durable and trendless. Fashion designers are already working towards seasonless collections, so “trends” per se are becoming obsolete. Therefore, stores will now have to make up for their seasonless collections and improve elsewhere such as price point, quality, branding, service and consumer experience.
So the appointment of Ms. Bonnie Brooks does inspire hope for The Bay brand, or really just the department store experience as a whole. We’re in serious need of quality stores in Montreal, and despite my initial reactions of The Bay possibly losing its brand name and appeal, at least they’re making an effort in changing it for the better.
