Royalmount and Plaza St-Hubert: Why malls exist

Montréal just got a new mall, the glossy, upscale Royalmount. A friend asked if I had been yet. She had, and was impressed by the place, especially the food hall.

I will at some point get there, happy to meet her for coffee or lunch. But it has been years since I sought a mall for solo shopping. The very features they offer—the protected, always-clement environment, the ease of moving from one store to the next, the choice—are for me anti-goals because malls ratchet up my acquisitive side; I can be, as my Aunt Alfhild, Queen of the Malapropism, would say, "a repulsive shopper".

I might go for fresh towels, and come home with those—and a pair of patterned tights that I'll never wear, and a 40% off skirt. The riotous display dulls my discrimination, not only between need and want, but also between satisfaction and rapaciousness.

Royalmount will showcase global luxury brands that include Moncler, Vuitton, Tiffany, and also fast-fashion giants like Zara and H&M. There's a sprinkle of Quebec designers (Marie St-Pierre, Mackage, Rudsak), but only St-Pierre's company manufactures here, now rare as a veil on a hat.

I can have fizzy, girly fun at such malls when I go with a friend; we skip into her favourite shops, sample fragrances at Sephora and eat fancy salads: a seamless, seductive endorphin delivery system. It's also an efficient way to check out the current styles. 

But compared to independent shops, malls have no soul, no one's particular sensibility. They are algorithm-driven, from product to music to staff scheduled according to traffic. Unlike Royalmount's mogul developer, who referred in a CBC News interview to his project being "a cure for the loneliness epidemic", I do not feel connected to humanity in a mall, I feel enervated.

The Plaza

We have another kind of mall near us, a stretch of shops collectively called Plaza St-Hubert, along a five-block section of Rue St-Hubert. There isn't a consistent facade among the aged storefronts; the only unifying feature is a permanent overhead canopy providing partial shelter.

PSH is a jumble of beaded evening and bridal wear, fabric shops, low-end jewellers, a Latino supermarket cheek by jowl with épiceries fines selling Quebec specialities and French imports. There's a magical candy store time-warped in the 1950s, a true shoemaker, several restaurants on the Best in Canada lists (Pichai and Plaza Montreal), a very good coat store packed with the requisite puffers, and some sketchy perfume boutiques where the dust is thicker on the bottles than the windows. It is always re-inventing itself, with chipper attempts at gentrification alongside the discounters and thrifts.

Beurd "Sky" hoodie

I like its motley democracy, even though there's a whole lot of cheap stuff made in China or the like. Increasingly, I'm seeing tourists, students looking for locally-made streetwear at Beurd, after-work gangs en route to The Snowbird Tiki Bar. Earlier this year, Time Out Magazine ranked the street as the "27th Coolest Street in the World", but that seems a high honour for a gritty urban artery where a few sidewalk planters are the only attempt at beautification. 

What, I asked myself this morning, walking through a still-sleeping Plaza, is the essential difference between the two? Royalmount is aspirational: if one cannot buy Gucci, one can at least walk in and pretend. I would visit if in a "price be damned, I need a really good dress" mood, but realistically, I'd beat a sticker-shocked retreat.

St-Hubert is funkily down-to-earth: Duck into Dollarama for household basics, then check Belle et Rebelle, with its indy clothes and bags, and across the street, scoop up Produits Calientitos' empanadas straight from the oven for lunch. Its job is to supply everyday wine glasses, a pair of cozy flannel pjs, Hallowe'en candy—goods for which labels don't drive the sale.

One of the first-day shoppers at Royalmount was a young woman who said, "Finally, we have a mall like the other cities our size!" And I thought, Be careful what you wish for, lest it come true—advice ascribed to both ancient Greek morality tales and Aesop's Fables. 

Whatever the source, the admonition is as apt now as ca. 260 B.C.