Socialist nation opens 1st luxury shopping mall
HAVANA — The saleswomen in L’Occitane en Provence’s new Havana store make $12.50 a month. The acacia eau de toilette they sell costs $95.20 a bottle. Rejuvenating face cream is $162.40 an ounce.
A few doors down, a Canon EOS camera goes for $7,542.01. A Bulgari watch, $10,200.
In the heart of the capital of a nation founded on ideals of social equality, the business arm of the Cuban military has transformed a century-old shopping arcade into a temple to conspicuous capitalism.
With the first Cuban branches of L’Occitane, Mont Blanc and Lacoste, the Manzana de Gomez Kempinski mall has become a sociocultural phenomenon since its opening a few weeks ago, with Cubans wandering wide-eyed through its polished-stone passages.
Older Cubans are stunned at the sight of goods worth more than a lifetime’s state salary. Teenagers and young adults pose for Facebook photos in front of store windows, throwing victory signs in echoes of the images sent by relatives in Miami, who pose grinning alongside 50-inch TV sets and luxury convertibles.
The Cuban armed forces’ business arm has become the nation’s biggest retailer, importer and hotelier since Gen. Raul Castro became president in 2008.
Gaviota, the military’s tourism company, is in the midst of a hotel building spree. The military corporation Cimex, created two decades ago, counts retail stores, auto-rental businesses and even a recording studio among its holdings. The military retail chain TRD has hundreds of shops across Cuba that sell everything from soap to home electronics at prices often several times those in nearby countries.
Along the bisecting galleries of the Manzana’s ground floor, TRD Caribe and Cimex — host the luxury brands along with Cuban stores selling lesserknown but still pricey products aimed at Cuba’s small but growing upper-middle class, like $6 mini-bottles of shampoo and sets of plates for more than $100.