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DRIVING IT HOME
NOW & THEN
Vancouver Changing Its Look:
Forty Years Later
But the interesting thing about luxury after 40 years is that it seems to be becoming less about having more and more about needing less. The best restaurants are not necessarily the ones with the most silverware. The best hotels understand that privacy can be more valuable than a chandelier. The best clothes whisper. The best cars are increasingly quiet. And perhaps the greatest extravagance in Vancouver is having enough time to sit beside the ocean and not check your phone.
orty years ago, luxury in Vancouver was easier to recognize. It usually had a doorman, a French name, a wine list requiring reading glasses and, if possible, something flambéed at the table. A luxury car was large, leather-lined and preferably German. A luxury home had a view. If it had two views, somebody from Toronto was probably trying to buy it.
Vancouver in 1986 was busy introducing itself to the world, and Expo 86 helped enormously. Before long, warehouses became Yaletown, industrial waterfront became glass towers, and the city discovered that an unobstructed view of the mountains could be measured not only in degrees, but in millions of dollars. We became very good at luxury. Perhaps too good.
That may be Vancouver’s real achievement. We have spent four decades becoming wealthier, taller, more international, more sophisticated and considerably better fed. Yet the things that made this place luxurious back then are still the things no developer has managed to improve: mountains, ocean, forests, clean air, long summer evenings and the remarkable ability to ski in the morning and complain about traffic by lunch.
Today, you can walk along Alberni Street past names that once required a trip to Paris, London or New York. You can eat food prepared with the seriousness once reserved for surgery. You can buy chocolate made like jewellery, jewellery displayed like art, and art displayed outdoors where, rather inconveniently, everyone can enjoy it for free. Even golf has changed. Once, you hit a ball and blamed the wind. Now technology produces enough data to prove conclusively that the wind was innocent.
We can order almost anything from anywhere, yet increasingly what we value most is what remains unmistakably here. Luxury used to announce itself. Now, at its best, it doesn’t have to.
Which may explain Vancouver. After 40 years of trying to become a world-class city, we may finally have discovered the ultimate luxury: Being Vancouver. T
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