Collingwoodbuildinglover
Active Member
At this point, I would love to see a compilation of these overhead shots in order! It has been so awesome to watch this project go up. So far I am actually fine if it takes a little longer 
- Thread starter urbandreamer
- Start date
Blovertis
Active Member
I'm old enough to remember when Cumberland Terrace was upscale. In any case, Rodeo Drive has some pretty dodgy stuff on all sides.
Parkdalian
Senior Member
Yorkville is pretty swanky - I challenge anyone here to walk confidently into the Prada store. I challenge anyone on this forum to *touch* anything in the Prada store. It's mildly terrifying.
Cumberland Terrace is its own special animal: a dying mall. But it fulfills its purpose. I always enjoy having a Teriyaki experience when I'm Christmas shopping in the area.
Cumberland Terrace is its own special animal: a dying mall. But it fulfills its purpose. I always enjoy having a Teriyaki experience when I'm Christmas shopping in the area.
T.E.C.II
Active Member
zang
Senior Member
Most of the stores are void of customers, even on the busiest days. It’s almost like they overcharge to make up for big marketing budgets and low sales volume.
There’s a pastiche of swank, but you’ve got Indigo, Hakim, Winners, etc. And other than a few big luxury names, a whole bunch of fly by night independent boutiques hoping to rope in gullible customers trading on the Yorkville name.
It’d be nice if we stopped trying to shoehorn in superfluous luxury stores and let it more naturally develop for the growing local, less affluent population; realtors be damned.
j_yyz
New Member
Most of the stores are void of customers, even on the busiest days. It’s almost like they overcharge to make up for big marketing budgets and low sales volume.
There’s a pastiche of swank, but you’ve got Indigo, Hakim, Winners, etc. And other than a few big luxury names, a whole bunch of fly by night independent boutiques hoping to rope in gullible customers trading on the Yorkville name.
It’d be nice if we stopped trying to shoehorn in superfluous luxury stores and let it more naturally develop for the growing local, less affluent population; realtors be damned.
I have a friend who works for one of the luxury stores, and they say the Yorkdale location does way better in sales than the Yorkville location.
Johnny Au
Senior Member
Johnny Au
Senior Member
Part 2 of 2 taken on November 19, 2023:
Yonge and Bloor (aka the Golden Corner or the Champagne Corner):
Yonge Side:
Yonge and Bloor (aka the Golden Corner or the Champagne Corner):
Yonge Side:
zang
Senior Member
Exactly. I know it’s anecdotal, but I can’t count the number of times I’ve been down the strip and just seen bored salespeople milling about and not much else.
Hell, even years ago, I went into Tiffany’s to purchase a gift, and I was the only person in there for a good half hour. And I will add, this was on a weekend, two weeks before Valentine’s Day. Not much has changed since.
Yorkville’s more of a tourist attraction for wealth-chasers and Bros who’ve overextended their credit cards to rent a lambo for a day and pretend they’re rich.
Parkdalian
Senior Member
I'm sure Yorkdale does so much more business than Yorkville. It's much more accessible to suburban wealth. And it's not a neighbourhood - it's a mall. Yorkville is the swankiest neighbourhood in Toronto.
The problems that zang has with the area are exactly why I have a soft spot for Yorkville. Like any, yes - swanky - neighbourhood, it has social strivers. But it also has a lot of leftovers from its time as much more downscale neighbourhood: Sushi Inn, Flo's, the Pilot, Hemingway's - sitting side by side with the Four Seasons, Alobar, Louis Vuitton, Hermes. It's a real neighbourhood with all the imperfections of a real neighbourhood.
Is Yorkville at its peak? No - it's not where it was ten, fifteen years ago. But folks, if you want to get run over by three Escalades in a row while scurrying across the road with an overpriced cappuccino and your latest Aesop purchase, Yorkville is the place to do it.
The problems that zang has with the area are exactly why I have a soft spot for Yorkville. Like any, yes - swanky - neighbourhood, it has social strivers. But it also has a lot of leftovers from its time as much more downscale neighbourhood: Sushi Inn, Flo's, the Pilot, Hemingway's - sitting side by side with the Four Seasons, Alobar, Louis Vuitton, Hermes. It's a real neighbourhood with all the imperfections of a real neighbourhood.
Is Yorkville at its peak? No - it's not where it was ten, fifteen years ago. But folks, if you want to get run over by three Escalades in a row while scurrying across the road with an overpriced cappuccino and your latest Aesop purchase, Yorkville is the place to do it.
Vminkov
Active Member
Sushi Inn's $7 lychee martinis and its tuna sushi pizza needs heritage designation
T.E.C.II
Active Member
Most of the stores are void of customers, even on the busiest days. It’s almost like they overcharge to make up for big marketing budgets and low sales volume.
I remember reading somewhere that a lot of these stores rely on a small handful of loyal customers who can afford to shop there, and will buy a bunch of expensive items at the one time. Looking at Hermes's website, I see they have shirts that cost over two thousand dollars. These are not stores where just anyone off the street is popping in to shop, I'd bet the people that do are personal shoppers and assistants shopping on someone else's behalf.
junctionist
Senior Member
Fair. Another reason for the struggles, though, might be that a lot of old money Torontonians who can afford to shop at the high-end boutiques have their clothes custom made.
Why waste time going from store to store looking for something stylish that fits, when your tailor can just make you clothes that are stylish and fit perfectly in one outing?
Yorkdale probably gets more aspirational shoppers from the suburbs and Americans driving in on vacation who are looking to have fun and splurge.
crumplescotch
New Member
'Suburban wealth' has nothing on Rosedale, Forest Hill, Briddle Path, South Hill, Younge & Eglinton, etc aka urban wealth. Hell, even Yorkville itself, not just anyone can afford to live there.
I used to go to Yorkville almost every weekend in post-covid times in warmer (better) days. I've seen so many nouveaux riches in this neighbourhood I lost count. And yes, I did occasionally walk into Gucci, Louis Vuitton, YSL stores and Holt Renfrew and they were brimming with people on the weekends, it was literally hard to get any service. I'm not even talking about hardships of getting into one of those fancy restaurants like Enigma or Aburi Hana without reserving a table in the month prior. I mean, there are 3 Michelin stared restraunts in Yorkville, the rest of them are trying to keep up and they're getting much more foot traffic than any mall. It's an upscale neighborhood and 90% of its visitors are rich people (or people pretending to be rich). To sum up - it's a vibrant neighborhood, a real downtown neighborhood that's currently growing at a very fast pace, apart from luxury condos and hotels being built, there are also more luxury shops comming up - Van Cleef and Arpels, Rolex, etc. There's also Hermes and other less popular ultra-luxury brands, stuff that you can't get in Yorkdale. Loyalty programs, special treatment for frequent customers, closed VIP events, etc. It's not just some boring mall, there's a reason why every Canadian flagship luxury store is in Yorkville and not Yorkdale (biggest Dior store on the continent, Channel, two story Louis Vuitton, Hermes), it's not just the service, even the inventory is oftentimes better than their counterparts in Yordkale. Saks Fifth Avenue + Eaton Centre is just down the road as well. In any case, these stores have a very good reason to exist and sales is the main one - it's just business, they would've just closed them if they underperformed (and definitely none of them would've rushed to open up more of in the area)
Yorkdale visitors, on the other hand, are not old money/nouveaux riches, but rather middle class/lower middle class people for the most part, from my expirience. Good performance (fourth best in North Amercia?) comes out of the volume and the fact that it can almost be considered outside of 'Toronto proper', serving different type of crowd, suburban, GTA, outside of GTA, pandering to them and adopting more americanized style of shopping which is almost entirely confined within the wall of the mall.
There are not a lot of European-style luxury shopping districts in North America left, we should cherish the fact that one of them exists and flourishes here in Toronto. There are many Yorkdales in the States and Canada, all around, but not a lot of Yorkvilles so to speak.
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crumplescotch
New Member
Who do you think makes these custom made clothes for them?
Rich people order custom made clothes from those very same luxury designer flagships in Yorkville. Every celebrity has a custom-made designer piece of attire. Be it for Met Gala, Oscars red carpet or some other event like that, it has to come from a well-known luxury designer brand and not some mom-and-pop sewing shop. Think of Kardashians/Jenners wearing custom Marc Jacobs and Schiaparelli to Met Gala, you can bet rich people and their kids will want the same sort of thing.
Hermes bags like Birkin are almost entirely customized for their clients for example. You have to have a purchase history with Hermes and get on the waiting list for such bag. Same goes with every other luxury designer and custom-made attire. There's no such service in Yorkdalle as far as I know. There are also boutique shops in Yorkville that carry inventory that simply do not exist anywhere else in the city. They sell some really rare stuff from Loro Piana, Brunello Cucinelli and Celine - real, old-money exclusives which are not that well-presented in Yorkdalle.
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