New Crowd Control Rules for H&M’s Jimmy Choo Collection
Based on previous designer collection frenzy at H&M, this year’s Jimmy Choo Collection will be handled differently.
Fashionistas prepare yourselves.
According to a friend of mine who works for the Swedish giant retailer at the downtown Ste-Catherine location, there will be massive crowd control from the get-go. Everyone who lines up before the doors will receive a color-coded bracelet, each bracelet will allow shoppers to shop for only 10 minutes before they are kicked out. Thus limiting only a certain number of people to shop within the new Jimmy Choo collection, and avoiding nasty catfights.
Shoppers are NOT allowed to select 2 of the same items, which will prevent eBay scalpers from reselling the goods at a stratospheric amount.
This will probably mean that a long lineup will mean a long wait. But for the sake and sanity of H&M workers and everyone beside them, I think the company has taken good steps much like Uniqlo +J approach to give everyone a chance in getting a piece of the new limited collection.
Be prepared to fork out $275 for bags, and about $125-$175 for the shoes.
So the price range is about the same as you would shop at an Aldo or Nine West store for a pair of shoes. Are they worth it? I wonder.
Jimmy Choo hits select stores Saturday, November 14, 2009.
You can also take a look at Sonia Rykiel’s upcoming unpractical lingerie collection at Nitrolicious.
Image credit: H&M
What is Montreal’s Sustainability Factor?
If you haven’t noticed already, the Montreal Fashion Week website has been update and spruced up for it’s Spring Summer 2010 edition. Miraculously, I’ve been given media accreditation as a fashion blogger so I’ll be attending some of the shows.
The Spring edition contains the usual suspects - Marie Saint Pierre, Denis Gagnon, Christian Chenail, etc - and a handful of newcomers to the show: Claude Bouchard, Dimitri Chris, Micalla, and Annie 50.
The highly successful Le Showroom, a sort of trunk show, will be showcasing other local designers’ collections since many are not choosing to run on the catwalk. Curiously, the CIMM is MIA in this edition, where usually the more commercial designers like Simon Chang would showcase the more wearable collections to the public. I would’ve thought they had finally made some sort of business connection with MFW, but I guess that has dissolved?
One has to wonder though how the recession has affected local Canadian fashion industries. More and more companies are outsourcing their workload to Asia, with a very select few companies who still produce in Canada (to my knowledge Tristan and Le Chateau are still hanging in there). The sole and only press conference that could possibly address this issue will be on Tuesday, Oct 15th, the inaugural opening day of Montreal Fashion Week SS10, but I’m afraid it’s nothing more talking fluff to reassure designers.
I do certainly believe that a fashion conference in Montreal is severely lacking in addressing these important business issues. And perhaps it would be to the local designers’ benefit if the industry would stop trying to brush it off by replacing it with more talks about pushing creativity, which frankly is not necessary. Think of all the past talents that have appeared and disappeared under the radar: Yso, Renata Morales, Rush Couture, Nadya Toto, Marisa Minicucci, Philippe Dubuc, and for a time Denis Gagnon. Top tier talents like Dubuc and Minicucci are struggling to keep afloat, or in Minicucci’s case, have to rethink their business strategy altogether. Montreal also has to contend with Toronto, which often has some of our best talents migrating to show such as Rudsak, Andy, Aqua di Lara, Travis Taddeo, and Morales, and our cream of the crops are showcasing in Paris or New York, like Rad Hourani and Mackage. It seems that Montreal is too small for designers who are aiming higher.
If Montreal is supposed to be so axed on promoting local talent and encouraging to buy local, they will certainly need to rethink their strategies to influence shoppers. Because the fast fashion giants down on Ste-Catherine are eating up the local industry’s sales with cheap “chic” like Forever 21, H&M, and Zara. While the talents of the likes of CIMM is totally capable of wowing us with commercial and sometimes innovative garments, yet they are nowhere to be found this season.
Like I’ve said before, Montreal has great potential as a fashion hub, but lacks the direction and support it needs to establish itself as true player among fashion capitals.
Image credits: Jimmy Hamelin, Montreal Fashion Week
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
The Bay’s Posts 12-Page Ad for September Issues
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.
Change of Venue for Fantasme! Aug. 20th
For those of you attending the Fantasme event, the venue has been changed to SAT, 1195 Saint-Laurent (Corner of St-Catherine). Same time.
The change has occurred due to impending rain announced for tonight.
Bring your umbrellas!
