Montreal-based women’s fashion brand Judith & Charles will open two Canadian locations and two international stores this year, adding to its current 12 boutiques. As well, the brand recently re-launched its website, featuring expanded e-commerce and enhanced usability.
Founded in 1975 in Paris, the brand was originally named Teenflo. In 1990, Judith Richardson and Charles Le Pierrès bought the brand, moving its headquarters to Montreal. In 2008, Teenflo was renamed ‘Judith & Charles’. Priced as a ‘contemporary‘ brand, it is best known for its Italian yarns, exceptional fit and minimalistic styling, and locally-based craftsmanship.
This fall, Judith & Charles stores will open two Toronto locations: one at Hazelton Lanes, soon to be rebranded as Yorkville Village, and a second at Sherway Gardens. This spring, Judith and Charles will open its third New York City store at Brookfield Place and in the spring, as well, it will open a boutique in Doha, Qatar.
Judith & Charles currently has 12 free-standing brick-and-mortar locations in Canada and the United States. In Canada, the brand has two locations in Montreal, two in Calgary, two in Toronto, three in Vancouver, one in Ottawa, and two in New York City.
Judith & Charles is represented in Canada by Jeffrey Berkowitz and Jeri Brodie of Aurora Realty Consultants.
The brand’s website recently saw a revamp, featuring integrated browsing. Judith & Charles’ entire seasonable lookbook is integrated with its digital catalogue. Its checkout process is streamlined, and shipping and returns are made to be simple. The new website is mobile friendly and also features an ‘inspiration page’ with art, architecture, music and photos from the brand’s ‘creation process’.
Sources at Prada confirm that the luxury Italian brand will open an 8,200 square foot flagship in Downtown Vancouver. It will be the second free-standing location in Canada for Prada, following its Toronto Bloor Street flagship which opened in 1997.
Prada will locate in the corner retail space of The Carlyle, a luxury complex at the southeast corner of Alberni Street and Thurlow Street. Prada will locate next to upscale brands Tory Burch and De Beers, as well as a number of other luxury brands which will be revealed shortly. The immediate area features luxury stores such as Burberry, Escada, Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co., Montblanc and others and this spring, a 12,000 square foot Dior flagship opens at the nearby Fairmont Hotel Vancouver. Also joining the area this spring will be Canada’a first location for luxury Swiss watch brand Jaeger-LeCoultre, as well as Chinese jeweller Lao Feng Ziang.
Sources at Prada inform us that the Vancouver store will feature men’s and women’s ready-to-wear, as well as footwear and accessories. The store will open towards the end of this year. Prada declined to provide official comment for this article, except to say that more information will be revealed closer to the Vancouver store’s opening date. A source at the New York City headquarters, speaking off the record, explained why Prada chose Vancouver. Prada’s Vancouver concessions, located within Holt Renfrew, continue to see robust sales. The city boasts a population of loyal Prada shoppers, as well as a growing number of affluent tourists. The Alberni Street retail space itself, being on a corner with high exposure, presented a desirable opportunity for Prada, at a rent substantially less than what is being paid for many of its flagships.
Canada’s first Prada location opened in 1997 at 131 Bloor Street West in Toronto. The 2,500 square foot location was substantially expanded in March of 2009, bringing the store to an impressive 5,890 square feet.
Prada also operates several concessions in Canada, all located within Holt Renfrew stores in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal. Vancouver’s Holt’s boasts Canada’s only Prada men’s shop-in-store concession, and its new Yorkdale concession spans an impressive 3,000 square feet with its own mall entrance. Prada recently re-opened its Montreal Holt Renfrew concession, showcasing the brand’s bright new store design featuring black-and-white checkered flooring.
We’ll update you with further details on Vancouver’s Prada flagship as they become available.
German luxury brand MCM is making a comeback and it’s looking to open free-standing Canadian locations, according to sources. MCM reportedly does robust wholesale business at Holt Renfrew, prompting a Canadian store expansion.
Founded in Munich in 1976, MCM is known for its logo branded leathergoods, similar to Louis Vuitton‘s monogram canvas. MCM (which stands for Mode Creation Munich) was especially popular in the 1980’s for its flashy, logo-printed accessories. Its business eventually faltered as consumer preferences shifted towards less overt luxury branding, not to mention the brand flooded the market and became subject to counterfeiters. At the height of its popularity in 1993, it boasted 250 stores worldwide with sales in excess of $250 million.
MCM accessories are available in Canada at Holt Renfrew locations in Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto Bloor Street, and Toronto Yorkdale Shopping Centre.
Patrick Valeo III, MCM’s president, told Women’s Wear Daily: “America is crucial this year. We’re planning aggressive growth for the future. We’re going to roll out more U.S. stores in the spring. We do great business in Canada at Holt Renfrew and we’ll open our own stores there.”
MCM recently opened its first U.S. flagship, spanning 4,000 square feet in New York City’s SoHo area. On February 10, the company’s first e-commerce site launched, as a precursor to its global rollout. Mr. Valeo says that MCM is close to signing leases at three Las Vegas properties (Wynn, Forum Shops at Caesar’s Palace, CityCenter) and is seeking sites in Los Angeles/Beverly Hills, San Francisco, Chicago, Houston, Honolulu, and southern Florida (Miami and Bal Harbour Shops). MCM has operated a small shop at New York City’s Fairmont Plaza Hotel for about six years.
MCM does over $500 million in global sales annually, mostly in Asia. MCM is the second-highest selling brand in Korean airports, for example, and it hopes to overtake Cartier to become number one.
MCM had two free-standing Canadian boutiques in the early-to-mid 1990’s, both in the resort town of Banff, Alberta. One was located at the Banff Springs Hotel and the other was downtown at Cascade Plaza, alongside Polo Ralph Lauren and Louis Vuitton. All have since shuttered.
Sponsored: Within five years, an estimated 10% of all Canadian retail sales will be done online. Although Canadians were initially slow to adjust to the online retail realm, e-commerce now is playing an increasingly significant role for major retailers. Canadian retail disruptor changeRoom, along with tech innovator Nymi and MasterCard, might be the keys to further connecting online shoppers with physical retail.
At the Dx3 Conference on March 11 and 12, changeRoom technology will be on display at the Retail Collective. The Collective, curated by Doug Stephens, President of Retail Prophet and sponsored by MasterCard, brings together the newest retail applications that will allow consumers to cross the lines between virtual and physical shopping. MasterCard’s payment technology connects customers to the retail experience in new ways that make the retail experience seamless for the shopper.
Dx3 is Canada’s largest conference and trade show dedicated to digital marketing, digital advertising and digital retail. It brings agencies, brands, publishers and retailers together for two days of networking and education. Now in its fourth year, Dx3 will deliver the companies, people and ideas that clearly communicate how Canadian digital business needs to move forward. The Dx3 Sessions will deliver the best companies and brands in the world – including MEC, Airbnb, Etsy, Buzzfeed, Reddit, Indigo – all focused on how digital is redefining the customer journey from beginning to end.
Today’s retail experts point to webrooming, an emerging retail trend combining online and in-store shopping, as an example of how the physical and online retail worlds collide. Webrooming allows customers to browse online, but visit a physical retail location to complete the transaction. Studies suggest that in 2015, between 54-71% of all physical retail sales will be driven through the act of webrooming.
“In many cases, online commerce is driving physical store foot traffic, but even more interesting are innovations that introduce bridges to help them complement each other,” said Cory Rosenfield, changeRoom Co-founder. “With changeRoom, we help retailers convert customers while saving Canadians time and frustration by solving the webrooming trend that is changing the Canadian consumer landscape.”
changeRoom is taking the process further by enabling customers to pre-select merchandise online from their favourite retailers for an appointment at the brick-and-mortar store. changeRoom customers then visit the physical location to try on, exchange and purchase, thus eliminating lines, saving time and enjoying a more satisfying retail experience.
Payment is made utilizing the Nymi band technology and MasterCard’s secure payment network. The Nymi band uses the electric activity of the wearer’s heart to authenticate their identity and confirm credit card information. MasterCard’s MasterPass digital payment solution will be used in tandem with the Nymi band to provide a secure and seamless checkout experience.
“ChangeRoom participated in the MasterCard NEXT hackathon in 2014 and impressed us with their vision for a smartly connected retail shopping experience — and our MasterPass digital payment solution is a natural fit with their application,” said Jason Davies, Vice President, Emerging Payments, MasterCard. “Bringing the experience to life at the Retail Collective inside Dx3 will show people what the future of shopping looks like.”
About Dx3 Canada:
Dx3 is Canada’s largest conference and trade show focused on digital marketing, digital advertising and digital retailing. It brings agencies, brands, publishers and retailers together for two days of networking and education.
Dx3 2015 is March 11-12, 2015 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre featuring more than 40 educational sessions, 100 exhibitors and 4,100 attendees from Canada’s leading brands and agencies.
Trendy Vancouver-based multi-brand women’s fashion retailer Aritzia will open its largest Canadian store in Montreal this spring. Aritzia will also open several Canadian locations this year, including a flagship in Halifax.
Aritzia will occupy 9,800 square feet in the former Mexx location at 1125 St. Catherine Street West in Montreal. The store will join the world’s second-largest Victoria’s Secret location up the street, replacing a recently shuttered Chapters bookstore. Aritizia will also keep operating its location at nearby Montreal Eaton Centre.
Montreal’s Artizia will be almost 2,000 square feet larger than its current largest store at West Edmonton Mall, spanning almost 7,900 square feet after a recent expansion.
Aritzia currently operates 49 Canadian locations, as well as 15 in the United States.
Although it will be the largest in Canada (for now), Montreal’s Aritzia flagship won’t be the largest in the chain. That honour goes to two Manhattan locations, with one set to substantially expand further. Currently, Aritzia’s Fifth Avenue flagship (just south of Saks Fifth Avenue‘s iconic flagship) is the chain’s largest, spanning an impressive 13,500 square feet. Its 10,680 square foot SoHo unit will expand to 18,320 square feet this year, however, making it the largest in the company.
Founded in 1984, Aritzia’s target market is women aged 14 to 30. Much of the clothing sold in its stores are its own exclusive brands, including TNA, Talula, Babaton, Wilfred, Wilfred Free, Community, Le Fou, La Notte, Sunday Best, Paradise Mine, The Castings, Six Eleven, and Auxiliary. Stores also carry clothing from brands such as Citizens of Humanity, Mackage, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Nike, Levi’s, Ebbetts Field, A Gold E, Havaianas, and J Brand Jeans.
Job postings are also up for the new store. Sources at Tory Burch declined to provide official comment for this article, except to confirm Toronto expansion plans.
Tory Burch’s first Canadian location, measuring 2,435 square feet, opened in May of 2012 at Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre. Its second store, measuring 2,885 square feet, opened in October of 2012 at Calgary’s Chinook Centre. Its third, measuring about 3,000 square feet, opened in October of 2013 at 1092 Alberni Street in Vancouver. A Tory Burch Outlet store is also located at the Toronto Premium Outlets.
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Tory Burch is an American lifestyle brand which was founded in February of 2004 by Chairman, CEO and Designer, Tory Burch. The collection is known for colour, print and eclectic details and includes ready-to-wear, shoes, handbags, accessories, beauty, home goods, and time pieces. The company boasts more than 125 freestanding boutiques and a has presence in more than 3,000 department and specialty stores globally.
The bad news is that I took a gnarly spill yesterday afternoon on the mountains. The nose of my snowboard got stuck in deep snow and I fell forward onto my shoulder and then compressed my back. I tore a shoulder ligament and possibly fractured two ribs. So snowboarding season is over for me this year.
The good news is that I now have more time to relax and enjoy the town of Banff, and then Revelstoke this weekend.
Banff is a beautiful town. It’s compact, walkable, and surrounded by snow capped mountains. How could you not love it?
One of the more subtle things that stands out for me though is the ubiquity of second level retail and restaurants. There’s a lot people in the (North American) real estate industry that will tell you that second floor retail just doesn’t work (you want ground floor). And indeed, it can be hard to pull off. As I’ve said before, getting retail right in general can be difficult.
But in Banff, many of the bars and restaurants are up top. Here are a few examples (there’s an Earls, Boston Pizza, and a Korean restaurant, respectively):
So my gut tells me that in order to get enough retail/commercial space to serve the area and its tourists, they had no choice but to go up. They simply ran out of ground floor space. Because if the town was able to instead sprawl outward, I suspect that’s exactly what it would have done. And then more ground floor space would have been created.
To be fair, most of the second floor examples I came across were bars and restaurants, which is arguably easier to pull off than straight retail. But it’s still something.
If any of you are familiar with real estate and planning in Banff or just have a better hypothesis, I’d love to hear from you in the comment section below.
About the Author: Brandon Donnelly is a real estate developer, internet entrepreneur, and blogger based in Toronto. His passions are cities, design, real estate, and technology.
He presently works at TAS, where he oversees the development of mixed-use condominium projects. He’s also cofounder of condo review site Dirt (thedirt.co). Prior to this, he worked in the development group of Morguard Investments on office and retail projects. Brandon has worked in real estate since 2007.
In his spare time, Brandon advises a non-profit called The Laneway Project. He also loves the gym, snowboarding, and Ontario wines.
About Architect This City: ATC is a daily blog for city builders written by an architect-trained, Toronto-based real estate developer. It was started in August 2013 and is rated by the Guardian Cities in the UK as one of the best city blogs in the world.
It covers everything from architecture and planning to real estate and technology. The posts are short and digestible, and are emailed out every morning at 6AM Toronto time. Subscribers are often architects, city planners, real estate professionals, entrepreneurs, policy makers, and other urbanists.
The mission of Architect This City is to promote the building of beautiful, sustainable, and globally competitive cities.
Popular value-priced American footwear retailer DSW Designer Shoe Warehouse is currently building its first Edmonton store, and we had a peek at the construction site. Confidential lease plans indicate that the West Edmonton Mall store will span just over 20,100 square feet, replacing multiple retailers on the second level of the mall’s ‘Phase I’.
DSW says that the Edmonton store will open this spring, possibly as soon as April. We’ll update this article when we learn more.
This spring, DSW confirms that it will also open two Calgary locations, as well as a store in Whitby, Ontario. Sources from around the country say that DSW is also building other stores, and we’ll discuss these locations in the next while.
DSW is hugely popular in the United States with over 430 locations in that country. Its name indicates its business model – it sells designer shoes at discounted prices. The company has hundreds of millions in cash and no debt.
Austin, Texas-based natural and organic supermarket chain Whole Foods has announced that it will open three stores in Western Canada, as it continues its Canadian store expansion. Whole Foods is working with a brokerage to secure more locations and we’re told that further store announcements will be made shortly.
Whole Foods will open in Edmonton, Calgary and in suburban Victoria, and its Alberta stores will be the first for that province. Its Edmonton store, measuring 42,000 square feet, will be located at South Park Centre at 3803 Calgary Trail South. Its Victoria store, measuring 40,000 square feet, will be located at 3587 Blanchard Street in the Uptown development in Saanich. Both stores will open in the fall of 2016. Further details on the Calgary location will be released this June, and it will open in the summer of 2017.
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Whole Foods currently operates four stores in B.C., with two Vancouver-area stores under development. A store in Burnaby will open this August, and a North Vancouver store is expected to open in the summer of 2017.
Real estate brokerage Northwest Atlantic is handling Whole Foods’ Canadian store expansion, except for those located in British Columbia. Sources confirm that the brokerage has been in talks with multiple landlords across the country, with more store announcements expected soon. Some speculate that Whole Foods may take advantage of some vacated Target store space, though likely only partial locations since Target’s Canadian stores are generally twice the size of typical Whole Foods locations.
Whole Foods entered the Canadian market in 2002 with a 40,000 square foot location at Toronto’s Hazelton Lanes, in the city’s upscale Yorkville area. Since then, four more stores have opened in the Greater Toronto Area. In 2007 Whole Foods bought the parent company of Vancouver-based grocery store Capers, paving the way for four Vancouver Whole Foods locations.
Founded in 1980 in Austin, Whole Foods currently operates 408 stores throughout the world, including 399 American stores and nine in the United Kingdom. It currently has 116 stores in development. The company employs about 87,000 people and last year had sales of U.S. $14.2 billion. Stores sell an average of almost U.S. $1,000 per square foot – higher than most grocery chains, though still less than organic grocer Trader Joe’s, which sees sales of almost U.S. $1,750 per square foot.
Whole Foods will face competition from a variety of upscale Canadian grocers, including Urban Fare in Western Canada. Vancouver-based Urban Fare is in the process of expanding its store base, including its first Calgary location just south of downtown.
We’ll keep you updated on Whole Foods’ expansion, including the location of its first Calgary store.
China’s premier fine jewellery brand Lao Feng Xiang will open its first Canadian location at 1016 Alberni Street in Vancouver’s ‘Luxury Zone’. Lao Feng Xiang replaces another jeweller, Pandora, which recently secured new retail space at nearby Pacific Centre.
Sources in New York City confirm that more details on Lao Feng Ziang’s Vancouver store will soon follow.
Founded in Shanghai in 1848 (during the Qing Dynasty), Lao Feng Xiang retails fine jewellery featuring gold, silver, diamonds, coloured gemstones, jade, pearl and enamel, as well as a robust bridal business. The company has over 2,700 retail stores throughout Mainland China and one in Sydney, Australia. Its first North American location, measuring an impressive 6,100 square feet, recently opened on New York City’s Fifth Avenue.
Vancouver’s Alberni Street is seeing a number of new luxury brands, several which will open near Thurlow Street. We’ll reveal a number of these brands over the next several weeks. These new retailers join existing luxury boutiques such as Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co., Montblanc, Gucci, De Beers, Escada, Burberry and others. A 7,000 square foot Christian Dior flagship will also open this spring at the nearby Fairmont Hotel Vancouver.
