LA MAISON SIMONS OPENING AT OTTAWA’S RIDEAU CENTRE || SPRING 2015

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March 27, 2013

La Maison Simons will open a 105,000 square foot store at Ottawa’s Rideau Centre in the Spring of 2015. This will be Simons’ ninth store (after its Galeries d’Anjou store opens this August) and its second location outside of Quebec.

Today’s announcement is surprising. In November 2012 we reported Simons was shut-out of Rideau Centre by Nordstrom. Simons subsequently sought space in an Ottawa-area mall in Gatineau, Quebec. Despite the signed Rideau lease, Simons may still open a second Ottawa-area store, according to Simons President and CEO Peter Simons.

Negotiations between La Maison Simons and Rideau Centre landlord Cadillac Fairview commenced about five years ago. Negotiations stalled in November 2012. Renewed talks led to a signed lease agreement between Simons and Rideau Centre about two weeks ago.

Simons’ first non-Quebec store opened at West Edmonton Mall in October of 2012. That store recently won Chainstore Age’s International Store of the Year award. Peter Simons says they are actively seeking space in and/or around Vancouver and Toronto as well as in other Canadian cities.

Construction is underway for an expansion of Ottawa’s Rideau Centre. This week, unfortunately, part of the facade of the historical Ogilvy department store collapsed with preservation efforts. Its historical elements are to to be integrated into the mall expansion.

We will update readers with further La Maison Simons Rideau Centre store details, including store size, location, and Rideau Centre expansion renderings and floorplans.

Thank you to our source, Retail Insider Geoffrey Hall, for providing us with the link to this article source.

La Maison Simons website: www.simons.ca
Rideau Centre website: www.rideaucentre.net

NEW CANADIAN UNDERWEAR LABEL LAUNCHES AT HOLT RENFREW’S HR2 TOMORROW

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Retail Insider

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March 27, 2013

Vancouver-based ‘Naked‘ underwear will launch its lower-priced ‘NKD’ line at tomorrow’s hr2 by Holt Renfrew grand opening in Montreal. The line includes t-shirts, tanks and underwear.

The NKD line will include ‘soft fabrics’ the Naked mainline is known for. It will be geared towards younger males, according to the company’s press release.

Last week we reported on hr2 by Holt Renfrew opening its first discount concept store tomorrow, March 28 2013, at Montreal’s Quartier Dix30.

[Article source press release]

Naked underwear website: www.thenakedshop.com
hr2 website: holtrenfrew.com/hr2

KLEINFELD BRIDAL OPENING CANADIAN STORES || FIRST STOP: TORONTO’S HUDSON’S BAY

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Retail Insider

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March 26, 2013

image-asset - 2021-02-24T205627.853 — Hudson's Bay on Queen Street in Toronto

NYC-based Kleinfeld Bridal is opening a 20,000 square foot flagship salon on the seventh-floor of Toronto’s flagship Hudson’s Bay (aka “Queen Street store”). Readers may be familiar with Kleinfeld as featured on the TLC television show ‘Say Yes to the Dress‘. The store opens early 2014.

Hudson’s Bay President Bonnie Brooks first alluded to the Kleinfeld deal in July 2012 when The Toronto Star reported that a 20,000 square foot franchise was ‘close to signing a deal’ for seventh-floor space.
Kleinfeld Bridal salons will subsequently open at Downtown Hudson’s Bay stores in Montreal and Vancouver.

Kleinfeld’s partnering with Hudson’s Bay is a brilliant move ahead of Nordstrom’s Canadian entry. In late 2010, Nordstrom introduced ‘The Wedding Suite’, an upscale bridal salon at selected stores. We’ve been told we can expect more than one Nordstrom Wedding Suite in Canada when Nordstrom opens next year.

Hudson’s Bay already has Canada’s most popular wedding registry. Kleinfeld will compliment that with an extensive wedding gown collection generally priced from $1500-upward.

Kleinfeld reportedly earns about $1000 per square foot per year, according to an article in The Globe & Mail. If Toronto’s salon does similar sales, it will mean $20million/year. This could become the ‘most productive’ retail space in the Queen Street flagship Hudson’s Bay store, surpassing per-square-foot sales of cosmetics, handbags, shoes and its luxury women’s salon ‘The Room‘.

We will keep you updated on Kleinfeld’s Canadian expansion, including details of upcoming Montreal and Vancouver salons.

Article Sources: [Press Release] and [Globe&Mail]
Kleinfeld Bridal website: kleinfeldbridal.com
Hudson’s Bay website: www.TheBay.com

Follow Us on Facebook and Twitter

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Retail Insider

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March 25, 2013

Hello Readers,

We encourage you to follow us on both Facebook and Twitter. We consistently update both with comprehensive Canadian retail news content not found on this website. Following our Facebook and Twitter pages will create a ‘richer’ and more comprehensive Retail Insider experience.

Our Facebook page link: www.facebook.com/Retailinsider

Our Twitter page link: www.twitter.com/retailinsider_

We’re also in the process of creating a LinkedIn page for Retail Insider. We’ll let you know when it’s ready and we’ll provide the link.

Have an excellent week, everyone!

–The Retail Insider Team.

Do Readers Remember Toronto’s Creeds?

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Retail Insider

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March 22, 2013

Hello Readers! We want to do a retrospective on Toronto’s former luxury retailer, Creeds. If you have any stories, memories or photos, please feel free to submit them to us at insider@retail-insider.com.

To those unfamiliar, Creeds was a Toronto-based women’s mini-department store that was last located at 45 Bloor Street West in the Manulife Centre. Creeds’ former space is now partially occupied by William Ashley china. Creeds was approximately 35,000 square feet over two floors and featured several exclusive shop-in-store boutiques. It introduced Canada to Chanel with an elegant in-store Chanel Boutique. Creeds also included shops for Christian Dior, Emanuel Ungaro, Sonia Rykiel, Michael Kors and Krizia. Also included were a world-class fur salon, some gourmet food brands, cosmetics and jewellery The store unfortunately filed for bankruptcy in 1990.

In the past and especially in the 1980’s, Toronto was a fashion destination where wealthy women would fly in to shop at high-end places like Hazelton Lanes, Creeds and the then-slightly less-upscale Holt Renfrew store across the street from Creeds. We will do a separate article on the history of the Toronto Holt Renfrew flagship store in the near future.

Former Creeds location, now William Ashley. [Image Source]

We will also be doing a series of articles on the history of some well-known Canadian stores such as Holt Renfrew, Simpson’s, Woodward’s, Bretton’s and others. We love retail history and hope readers will enjoy our upcoming articles.

Retail Insider will announce a few new projects next week. We’ll be sending out ‘secret shoppers’ across the country to evaluate stores and their customer service. And we won’t be playing favourites. We’ll cover a variety of retailers and be evaluating them on a scale of ‘one–to–Nordstrom’. We’re only half-joking about that evaluation scale.

We’ve decided to make Retail Insider more fun and potentially interactive. Keep reading and have an excellent weekend, everyone!

p.s. We’re sending a big shout-out and thank you to Toronto Life Magazine. In the early 90’s in small-town Alberta, this author started loving retail after a neighbourhood mom gave us a Toronto Life Magazine providing insight into a fashionable world we had previously never experienced.

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Got any retail insider info? insider@retail-insider.com

TopShop Opening This October at Mississauga’s Square One

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Retail Insider

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March 21, 2013

image-asset - 2021-02-24T210417.206 — TopShop

TopShop/TopMan will open a store inside of Hudson’s Bay‘s Square One Shopping Centre store in October. This will coincide with a renovation of the Square One Hudson’s Bay store, now underway. TopShop will be located on the main-floor of the 190,000 sq ft Bay store.

Hudson’s Bay is in the process of renovating some of its more productive suburban stores in an effort to modernize the chain. So far we are impressed with what we’ve seen, store-renovation-wise.

Mississauga’s Square One Shopping Centre is in the process of being expanded and renovated. The mall will soon get a renovated Target store anchor, replacing a former Zellers location.

This week we reported on the possibility that Holt Renfrew could open a store at Mississauga’s Square One. We’re not sure if negotiations are serious or if the negotiations are a tactic for Holts to get favourable lease terms for a possible Sherway Gardens Holt Renfrew store expansion.

We’ve got more Canadian TopShop store locations to announce. Thank you for reading Retail Insider.

TopShop/TopMan website: www.topshop.com

Hudson’s Bay website: www.TheBay.com

Clearly Contacts Vancouver Store Opens Today (March 21st)

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Retail Insider

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March 21, 2013

Clearly Contacts on Robson Street in Vancouver

Today Clearly Contacts opens its first-ever free-standing store on Vancouver’s Robson Street. We first reported on this store in January.

Clearly Contacts has reportedly signed a six-month lease for its Robson retail space, making us wonder about the company’s long-term bricks-and-mortar retail plans.

Clearly Contacts is one of several new, exciting retailers that will be opening on Vancouver’s famed Robson Street in the coming months. We’ll be announcing more in the weeks ahead, as well as improvements coming to Robson Street itself.

It might be considered an unusual shift for an online retailer to open a bricks-and-mortar location in an age where many retailers see increasing online sales as their future.

The company’s VP of marketing, Aaron Magness, says: “There’s only so much you can learn from surveys and focus groups. 100% brick-and-mortar creates a challenge for the consumer because it’s not convenient, but with 100% online, you miss the opportunity to engage with your customer and find out what makes them tick.”

Other retailers like Ebay and Etsy have opened temporary ‘pop-up’ stores but Clearly Contacts’ will be more permanent.

Magness says: “We think there’s a real opportunity here. The first store will be a testing ground for future locations, focussing largely on customer experience and interaction—there will even be an eye-care professional on site to conduct tests.”

Magness says the store is more about getting to know the customer than just making money.

We find Clearly Contacts’ store opening to be a positive movement in the world of retail. Given that the store may be only open for six months, however, we suggest you hurry if you want to get your glasses in-store.

[Partial Article Source – Canadian Business Magazine]

Holt Renfrew’s hr2 Announces Opening Dates, Twitter and Web Link

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Retail Insider

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March 20, 2013

Holt Renfrew‘s discount chain hr2 has announced opening dates for its first two stores. The Suburban Montreal store (at Quartier Dix30) will open March 28th, and the suburban Toronto location (at Vaughan Mills) will open May 10th.

The temporary hr2 website (via Holt Renfrew) lists the Montreal store as being 24,500 square feet and the Toronto store as being 23,000 square feet.

hr2 has its own twitter page as of today: www.twitter.com/hr2Official

hr2’s logo has been introduced, above. It includes the words ‘Holt Renfrew’ under the hr2. This leverages Holt’s cachet on the new store brand.

The website advertises purchasing hr2 gift cards. We’ll hold off until we get a better idea of what the store is about. So far this is Holt’s description of hr2: “Visit hr2 to shop the brands you love and the styles you want, all at prices you won’t believe. Our continually fresh assortment of womenswear, menswear, footwear, accessories and jewellery will keep you coming back for more. This is the new shopping experience that you’ve been waiting for.”

We first reported on Holt Renfrew’s hr2 launch in October 2012. A suburban Toronto location was announced in January 2013.

We’ll keep you updated on hr2 by Holt Renfrew news.

Article Source and hr2 website: holtrenfrew.com/hr2

Vancouver Airport Luxury Outlet Mall Details Revealed

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Craig Patterson

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March 20, 2013

Further details of the proposed McArthurGlen luxury outlets near Vancouver International Airport have been revealed. The first phase of the mall will open late 2014 with 78 stores.

We first reported on this development in November 2012. Vancouver International Airport has since provided the above render and the site plan, below.

Further details of the McAurthurGlen outlet mall were made in an information session at the Airport the evening of Tuesday, March 19th. We’ll update readers with further details.

Thank you to ‘officedweller’ of Vancouver Skyscraper Forum for bringing these new renders and plans to our attention.

Vancouver International Airport McArthurGlen website

Hudson’s Bay’s ‘The Room’ Coming to Montreal and NYC

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Retail Insider

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March 19, 2013

Hudson’s Bay‘s luxury women’s department ‘The Room‘ will open September 14th at Lord & Taylor in New York City and in 2014 at Hudson’s Bay in Montreal. NYC-based Lord & Taylor is owned by the same parent company as Hudson’s Bay.

Hudson’s Bay President Bonnie Brooks made these announcements during the March 13th Walrus Speaker Series.

The Room is already present in Hudson’s Bay stores in Toronto (21,500 sq ft, opened October 2009) and Vancouver BC (almost 20,000 sq ft, opened September 2011). It carries top-of-the-line ready-to-wear and accessories by such luxury designers as Balmain, Giambattista Valli, Azzedine Alaia, Roland Mouret, Sonia Rykiel and others.

Lord & Taylor is looking to ‘up its fashion game’ by introducing The Room to its Manhattan store. Compared to competitors Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman, Lord & Taylor is a bit more ‘traditional’ and generally not as upscale. Introducing ‘Room’ with designers like Moschino, Nina Ricci, Erdem and Comme des Garcons will launch Lord & Taylor into a new fashion realm creating competition for the newly renovated Third Floor at Saks Fifth Avenue (link includes video) located a few blocks up Fifth Avenue from Lord & Taylor’s flagship.

One potential issue with the Montreal ‘Room’ is that some of the staple designers from the Toronto and Vancouver Rooms are already carried at either La Maison Simons or Holt Renfrew. This means there will likely be label wars in a market that already has limited affluent shoppers (Montreal lags significantly behind Toronto and Vancouver in terms of luxury retail sales).

Hudson’s Bay website: www.TheBay.com

Lord & Taylor website: www.LordandTaylor.com

The Room website: www.TheBay.com/TheRoom

Retail InsiderCanada's Most-Read Online Retail Industry Publication.

LA MAISON SIMONS OPENING AT OTTAWA’S RIDEAU CENTRE || SPRING 2015

NEW CANADIAN UNDERWEAR LABEL LAUNCHES AT HOLT RENFREW’S HR2 TOMORROW

KLEINFELD BRIDAL OPENING CANADIAN STORES || FIRST STOP: TORONTO’S HUDSON’S BAY

Follow Us on Facebook and Twitter

Do Readers Remember Toronto’s Creeds?

TopShop Opening This October at Mississauga’s Square One

Clearly Contacts Vancouver Store Opens Today (March 21st)

Holt Renfrew’s hr2 Announces Opening Dates, Twitter and Web Link

Vancouver Airport Luxury Outlet Mall Details Revealed

Hudson’s Bay’s ‘The Room’ Coming to Montreal and NYC

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