Mountain Equipment Co-op: New Boutique on St. Denis Street

Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) today inaugurated a new store in the center of Montreal, on St. Denis street, in the part of the city called the Plateau. The new store is actually referred to as boutique. It does not carry the same great variety of clothing and equipment as their regular outlets. In fact, the size of the new retail place is only 1/5 of that of a MEC regular outlet.

This new MEC location has a novel concept, referred to as an urban boutique. The word ‘urban’ however does not designate that the boutique is located in the middle of a city and residential areas, but rather refers to the fact that it is geared to the urban population. Whereas previously Mountain Equipment Co-op had concerned itself chiefly with the “hard-line” sports, like marathon running, extreme rock climbing or hiking, the management has now realized that many former extreme sports practitioners have grown up, married, and have children. Their goals are no longer to excel and win in arduous sports, but to keep in good shape and enjoy the process. Now, instead of daily training, they might jog short distances twice per week, and go camping or for leasure hikes in nature with their children and family on weekends. Therefore, the sport clothing they buy has to also be used as a casual everyday wear in the city.

MEC now pays a special attention to needs of their female clientele who would like to look fashionable when wearing their sport clothing in the city. Therefore, they will be concerning themselves not only with the functionality of the clothing, but the design and colour.

The management has stated that the new MEC boutique is viewed as a kind of a laboratory to see what the city clients’ everyday needs are and how to adjust the items offered to satisfy those needs. They plan to closely observe and adjust this new concept during the next two years. As they rightly state, the cargo pants no longer satisfy especially the female clientele, and what was a standard in sports closing five years ago no longer fits the needs.

I would therefore urge all the readers of this post to go and visit the new MEC boutique located at 4394 St Denis Street, Montreal. From the middle of October you would be able to pick up a pamphlet that would enumerate all the special activities and conferences that the new MEC boutique will be holding to help people to keep in shape in the urban setting. Also, you can order through this store any items that the Montreal’s big MEC outlet has in stock, and can pick it up at the boutique in one hour’s time. In case you will have to return the item, it could be also processed through the St. Denis street boutique.

The new store’s MEC website.