DETAILS OF A BIG RETAIL WEEK
COS, Mackage open their doors
One week, three parties, three significant new retail entries to the Montreal market.
Tuesday, Mackage, the homegrown coat label that has made it into top retail shops around the world, fêted friends and the fashion crowd at its gleaming new store at Carrefour Laval.
Wednesday, men in beards and the fashion crowd descended on the new Stanley St. quarters of online menswear success story Frank & Oak. The three- storey shop — with café, barber and lounging areas — opens to the public Saturday.
Thursday, Champagne and shopping were on the agenda as COS, the high- end H& M division with a modernist design esthetic, held a pre- opening party. It opened Friday on Ste- Catherine St. W. in a Victorian building — obscured, to be sure, by decades of renovations — occupied for about 55 years by Montreal’s own groundbreaking fast- fashion chain, Le Château.
COS’s arrival is something of a milestone, signalling the unstoppable globalization of the street.
There is a new energy on Montreal’s storied shopping artery. In the past month, another new power player from Montreal, Lolë, set up on Ste- Catherine, restoring the historic Loew’s Theatre and keeping a mezzanine under the frescoed dome free for yoga and other classes. Soon the secondlargest Victoria’s Secret in the world opens near Stanley St.
For years there has been a trend for top chains, particularly the Americans — Banana Republic, Williams & Sonoma, Crate & Barrel, Victoria’s Secret, Pottery Barn — to first set up shop in suburban malls, be it Carrefour Laval, Rockland Centre or Dix30. Later, some move downtown.
The pull of the suburban malls remains strong. Mackage, which went after an international market before focusing on retail in its hometown, chose Carrefour Laval for its first Canadian store, citing proximity to its offices for the choice of location.
Form, function, fashion and a milestone for Montreal's fabled SteCatherine St. shopping artery: that's what COS brings to the downtown retail offering.
The high- end division of Swedish giant H& M, based in London and with a refined, minimalist sensibility, opened its doors Friday at the corner of de la Montagne St. in an 1860s building that had been the flagship for homegrown brand Le Château since about 1960.
The Victorian dormer windows are obscured from street level behind an arched stone facade added around 1987, but it's when you get inside that the remarkable transformation is clear.
Like i ts thoroughly modern clothing, often tending to the voluminous, COS's 4,200- square- foot space is modern, bright and angular, lit by three large skylights, with blond wood flooring and metal fixtures and racks.
“We want to offer high- end design at a high- street price,'' said head menswear designer Martin Andersson. "And I think the location we found here in Montreal is perfect."
The store is across the street from Ogilvy and the Apple Store, both of which draw foot traffic. And when Holt Renfrew merges with Ogilvy in 2017 in one mega luxury store, the area will become a renewed hub for luxury in the city.
COS looks to design with longevity, and with a pared- down esthetic, Andersson said. "Timeless classics are super important to us — everything from the little black dress to the navy suit — to have them done our way.
“We kind of follow the modernist mantra — less is more, form follows function — what we hope will make a garment look and feel modern next season, maybe five seasons from now.”
COS's style is rooted in art, architecture and design, Andersson said, naming Canadian Laurie Kang and Saskatchewan- born Agnes Martin as current inspirations.
“On the one hand, we tend to come back to great modernists like Eames for inspiration, but also to new and inventive designs.”
It's an alternative to H& M's cheap chic throwaway culture, and the price point picks up from where H& M's leaves off. Dresses start at $ 49 but go up to $ 390; coats go to $ 450. About 80 per cent of the offerings are for women.
"It's a different approach,'' Andersson acknowledged.
There are 132 COS stores in 27 countries — in Canada, Montreal follows a few weeks after a Toronto opening — compared with 3,700 stores worldwide for H& M.
COS — which stands for Collec-
tion of Style — likes to find local creatives when it enters a new market, Andersson noted. For the Montreal opening, it entrusted production of a lookbook to local agency Trusst, which shot items at Habitat 67 and asked prominent Montrealers like architect Phyllis Lambert, pastry maker Masami Waki and visual artist Pier- Yves Larouche to write about their favourite landmarks.
Andersson said COS sees itself as an international brand with a Scandinavian design heritage.
“We talk about our customer as a
group of people — we never say he or she is this age and so on — with a big- city mindset,'' Andersson said, adding they don't have to live in the big city. "They're very culturally aware. They like to explore galleries, art and design. They are very confident consumers.
“This mindset, we think, exists everywhere in the world.”
COS is at 1310 Ste- Catherine St. W.