After spending two years covering fashion and reading about many facets of the industry. It’s come to my distinct belief that I’ve been living in a far too consuming lifestyle. I find it fitting that after my 2009 trial of tracking my spendings on clothes, I’ve realized that not only have I gluttonously spent on clothes, but also on a lot of unnecessary knick knacks that I buy for myself like books, CDs, DVDs, keychains, etc.

Ever since I’ve had a kitten in my household, I’ve stopped shopping for clothes altogether. And what a difference in made in my life! I’m talking about the endless shopping bags that somehow pile up in my living room and bedroom. And the shoe boxes…where do you put shoe boxes in a tiny apartment?

I really want to change my lifestyle for the better and consume less. Spend less. I know, it’s unhealthy for many businesses not to have my money flow into their pockets, but that’s only because there is an overwhelming overstock of stuff out there that nobody needs. And this overstock is only fueled by the fact that everyone has “particular taste” and want to be individuals. So people end up making over hundreds of thousands of different dress styles, in the hopes that it will cater to only a handful of individuals that like a certain style. Then, at the end of the season, creators have an overstock of supplies and must liquidate by having sales.  It’s a waste of resources. Perhaps people should be making their own clothes and repair them when they’re worn out.

So instead of giving into mass consumerism and forking over thousands of dollars on luxury, albeit very well made, products – I’ve decided to make my own clothes.

No. I will not be one of those emerging designers in the hopes of changing the fashion world. The industry will continue to cater to those types of people. I am not a person who courts mass people, not even to mingle. I will be making clothes only for myself. It’s time for me to hang up my shopping bags and really get down and creative and start making my own clothes in the styles and colors that I want.

Food

I know this has very little to do with fashion, but food consummation goes through the same process as fashion. We have retailers (grocery stores) who sell generalized and often very bad products for the public to consume. But because of our all consuming lifestyle, families and individuals have found less time to cook and prepare. This is especially true for me as I’ve been living on an unhealthy diet for the past few years and have been lucky to still remain as thin (and alive) as I have thanks to genetics. But I know that a steady diet of Pepsi, pizzas, and frozen dinners is not going to cut it for me in the long run. I need to learn how to cook pronto.

My desire to improve my lifestyle has grown significantly over the years, not just in consummation but also mentally about many other aspects of my life. To desire change is one thing. But to actually act upon it is another. The latter I believe many people have difficulty doing so – changing your state of comfort for something else is an act that few people are willing to endure. But I believe that I’m ready. And it’s time to stop thinking about it and simply go forth with it.

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

A look inside Farfelu novelty and trinket store.

I asked myself this question when it came upon trying out Carrefour Laval as my guinea pig location. The Carrefour Laval is famous being the gargantuan mall with over 200 stores on the northern island and most consider Laval to be “pretty damn far” due to inconvenient commuting roads. Since the completion of three new metro stops on the Orange line extending to Montmorency, I decided to give it a whirl to see exactly how long will it take to go there.

Commute time? 1h15 mins.

The starting point was my home, in the far east of Montreal on the Green Line; this commute included bus and walking as well. You might be able to shave off 15 mins if you’re really lucky and get everything on time. Also take note that you will have to spend a minimum of $7.50 (for a roundtrip) since Laval’s transportation system does not belong to the STM and the three new metro stations will charge you extra if you try to come back to Montreal from those stations.

Shopping in Carrefour Laval has its good points and drawbacks though.

The Good

1) During winter time, it’s a blessing to have everything in one single spot. You can shop for home improvement at their indoor Rona to buying daggers, swords and peasant clothing at medieval themed store La Table Ronde.

2) Laval’s Simons (pictured above) is perceptually larger as its store concept is much more open and square, and lacks the chaotic mess as the one downtown. It also boasts a very modern and attractive home and bath section full of colorful towels and rugs.

3) Indoor garden-like atrium, one time I saw macaws inside huge bird cages there.

4) A couple of very trendy home deco boutiques like Le Living (similar to Zone) and some quirky colorful ones like Farfelu.

5) They have an authentic Build-A-Bear workshop store, we have something similar called Univers Toutou (formerly Atelier Toutou) which extends to other animals other than bears, located in the Old Port.

The Not So Good

1) Bring good walking shoes, you’ll be there for a while.

2) Their H&M only has the uber trendy collections, none of that hip office look like the one I can find at the Rockland Center.

3) The Apple store isn’t all that fantastic unless you’re a computer/Apple fan.

4) You can pretty much find all of these stores in the downtown area.

So the novelty of being in the Carrefour Laval is that it’s just so darn huge. But fashion wise, there is little to attract outsiders looking for a good deal or a unique store. After a while it feels like a copycat Houston mall with Canadian labels, and there’s nothing fantastic about that.

If you’re willing to kill a lot of time, feel free to make the trip, but I doubt there would be any reasons for Montrealers to leave the island to go shopping elsewhere. It’s a shame though, it’d be nice if the shopping experience can be expanded to the city surroundings, it would make the commute feel more like traveling to a fun and different place instead of winding up to a place where you can get the same thing on the island.

A weak economy? Peanuts. That’s not gonna stop them from finding the filler Christmas gift or some snappy sequin dress at a discount price.

I hit one of the many suburbian Houston malls, and we all know that everything is bigger in Texas, and shopping is everywhere you look.

Despite not making a blip on the fashion map, shopping in Houston is inevitable, whether it’s for shoes, or for Southern shutters for your windows, spending money here is like drinking water.

That’s why when I went to one particular Houston mall away from downtown, I was surprised at the turn out by first battling pick up trucks and 4×4′s for parking.  Then it was an ongoing battle to stay together as a group in the mall as the aisles and stores were covered in a sea of shoppers and baby strollers.

I entered the American equivalent of H&M, Forever XXI, the next best thing. I’ve bought many things from this store and didn’t come out empty handed. I picked up a cool faux fur ivory zip up vest for $27US. There was a fine collection of sequin dress, tops and wool coats, but I had to stick in resisting spending too much at one store. Once at the cash register, it was a 20 minute wait.

I didn’t attempt checking out other stores but did notice a couple of them I hadn’t seen before such as “Love Culture” and “Torrid.” The latter is a particular observation as it was one of many plus sized stores in the mall, which says something about its target consumers. I had been curious if Houston, one of the fattest cities in the country, catered to their heavier clientele. And they do. In general, walking into an American store in the South, you’ll rarely find a size XS. Unfortunately, the styles offered to plus size women were plain and pretty tacky.  But despite the size difference, Houston shoppers, big or small, have money. While I waited in line to pay for my furry vest, a woman in front of me was sporting a black Louis Vuitton leather purses (valued over $1000), not too far another was sporting the checkered LV. So these women aren’t poor. However, many of the younger shoppers opted for more Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister than Guess or Ann Taylor.

Department stores like Macy’s, Sears, and Dillard’s were invaded with shoppers all the way to the cosmetic counters.

From the looks of it, I might not get a chance to confront the masses at The Galleria, but if today was of any indication of what holiday shopping is like in Texas, I’d say they’re doing their part in keeping some of that economy alive.

So how does “Buy Nothing Day” work? If you’ve never heard of this unofficial holiday, it’s probably because you’re too concerned in figuring out what to get for Uncle Larry, worrying about that huge family reunion, and wondering if you should have enough food to splurge for turkey, stuffings, corn, ham and pineapples. Wait, what was I talking about again?

Buy Nothing Day is a concept created by Canadian social activist magazine AdBusters. Aware since 1992 that the world is consuming too many resources for its own good, they’ve decided to launch a sort of awareness day that you should buy nothing on the day after Thanksgiving (US). This is because after Thanksgiving, it is the biggest shopping holidays of the season until Christmas. And what could be more encouraging than this year when the Canadian Dollar is on par with US dollar? Americans haven’t adjusted any kind of inflation and it’s mighty tempting to go over the border to get you some cheap goodies.

Well Adbuster’s aim is to counter all of the greed shoppers inhibit during the holiday season. There have been manifestations all over the world on Buy Nothing Day, people standing in the streets with self-made posters, banners and stunts to stop shoppers from buying anything (or at least educate them). In Montreal’s case, in 2005 there was an attempt of a coup to an American Apparel shop downtown to show how the business is exploiting women in their ads. However, the plan was thwarted when a mole had infiltrated into the group and alerted American Apparel of the plan.

Of course, though the concept seems simple enough to not buy anything a particular day, it doesn’t really stop people from buying anything from the other 364 days out of the year. Especially where fashion is concerned, we are propelled to consume our goods. There needs to be a more sound concept where everyone could bind together and help causes instead of hinder businesses. Like, “Donate Your Clothes Day” or “Help The Shelters Day”, or something that could help others. When you do nothing, you do nothing. How is this going to help the world to stop consuming?

Is it just me or is Guess? trying to say something to their customers? There seems to be quite an aggressive marketing campaign going on downtown. I would say more like an overkill. In not even a 1km radius, Guess has been popping up all over the place. It seems that not even a prime location downtown in Complexe Les Ailes, nor an accessory store in the Eaton Center, located two steps away, are enough. There seems to be a flagship store in the works on the corner of Peel and Ste-Catherine where a TD bank used to reside, another 5 steps. It’s hard to miss, its construction walls are practically giant billboards.

As if they couldn’t advertise themselves even more, they have struck at deal with The Bay in celebrating their 25th anniversary, just in the time for the holidays. When you arrive at McGill Metro level of The Bay, what was once a prime little spot for the M.A.C. makeup counter has now been scrapped and replaced by, you “guess”ed it, Men’s Guess wear. Where has the M.A.C counter gone? I’d like to know myself. On the main floor, they picked prime traffic location to put mannequins dressed in the brand’s signature urban chic style right at the escalator intersections. It is the first thing you see when you end up going on the 2nd floor in Women’s section.

Adding more fuel to the fire, with the new Browns shoe store in The Bay, you can honestly figure out (yay for synonyms) which shoe collection is facing you first. I have to admit that their Carrie shoe is hot, but I must resist temptations.

But honestly, in one metro stop I’m already nauseated with the onslaught of Guess’ efforts. When a brand tries too hard to promote itself, you’re wondering if they really care about you or your money.