Inside Max Mara’s Beautiful New Boutiques at Vancouver’s Oakridge Park

Nestled at the confluence of emerald-hued forests and the sweeping expanse of the Pacific, Vancouver’s newly reimagined Oakridge Park has become the stage for a homecoming. Here, the storied Italian houses of Max Mara and its more relaxed sibling, Weekend Max Mara, have debuted two new boutiques. For a brand that occupied a corner of the original Oakridge Centre for decades, the return marks the restoration of a long-standing alliance between Italian tailoring and Canadian coastal living.

The new boutiques, positioned within the development’s South and East Gallerias, serve as architectural extensions of the brands themselves. At the 3,160-square-foot Max Mara flagship, the brand has committed itself to a kind of monochromatic seriousness. 

The interior is a study in stone and metal: Ceppo di Grè, the grey, fossil-flecked limestone synonymous with Milanese sophistication, pairs with the dramatic creamy veining of Calacatta marble. Brass and ribbed glass complete the composition, casting a soft, filtered glow. The setting is designed to showcase the Atelier collection, an exclusive North American offering that emphasizes handmade construction and luxurious textile touch, a rebuke to the ephemeral nature of seasonal trends.

If the main boutique is a meditation on the permanence of the overcoat, the nearby Weekend Max Mara space in the East Galleria offers an exercise in domestic fantasy. It reimagines the Italian home as an idealized vision, the kind of apartment one might encounter in a dream or a Fellini film. Landscape wallpaper evokes the Italian countryside, while graphic checkerboard motifs and geometric cement tiles animate the floors. The space feels intentionally like a living room, albeit one styled by a particularly tasteful Florentine friend. Here, the Inserimento collection hangs with unstudied contemporary grace, its rich textures inviting touch.

In an era when luxury is increasingly reduced to digital transactions, these boutiques reaffirm the enduring value of human connection. One can still be fitted by a tailor; one can still invite a stylist into a private room to curate a wardrobe. It is an acknowledgment that, for all the talk of exclusive collections and spatial design, the ultimate luxury remains the feeling of being attended to.

“The opening of Max Mara and Weekend Max Mara at Oakridge Park represents an important milestone,” said Harriet Guadagnuolo, the brand’s Vice President of Retail. After years of construction and transformation, the boutiques restore a sense of equilibrium. As shoppers move across polished stone floors, they are invited into a world that prizes the tactile over the digital, and the timeless over the new. It is a curious, welcome bit of Italian theater, planted firmly against the backdrop of the Pacific rain.