German luxury fashion brand Bogner has reopened its first corporately-run storefront in Canada on the luxury run of Toronto’s Bloor Street West, and the store could become permanent. The brand has also opened its first Canadian outlet store at the Toronto Premium Outlets in Halton Hills.
The Bloor Street Bogner ‘Winter Boutique’ pop-up store at 131 Bloor Street West will remain open at least until March of 2022. The 3,320-square-foot space in The Colonnade is next to Italian luxury brand Moncler — the Yorkville area is home to the largest concentration of affluent households in Canada and since opening earlier this month, sales have been robust at the Bogner store.
The Bloor Street retail space includes a mix of outerwear and fashions — compared to the 2020 pop-up which was open for a shorter time period because of the pandemic, this year’s collection is considerably more expansive with some light-weight fabrics in shirts and other garments and fall styles that would be appropriate for winters in a warmer climate such as Vancouver. The popular Bogner skiwear line features prominently as well including a range of winter jackets considered to be among the warmest available.
The Bogner Fall/Winter 2021 collection is described as offering a mix of sportive, timeless and technical fashions including iconic down jackets, stylish catsuits, luxurious knitwear and stirrup pants in elegant colours that are combined with casual sportswear pieces.
The brick-and-mortar expansion for the Bogner brand delivers “personal onsite retail experiences to both new and existing customers is the perfect addition”, according to the brand. Bogner’s co-CEO Heinz Hackl said, “We are actively scaling Bogner’s footprint in the US and Canadian markets and were able to efficiently test these in 2020. Now, we can act on that invaluable data to scale further, faster, and smarter. We are looking forward to the new season, this time with four exclusive winter boutiques and again with Flagship as a strong partner by our side.”
Bogner partnered with New York City-based FlagshipRTL to implement the Bloor Street store opening — FlagshipRTL is known to be a next-gen retail platform that also facilitated the launch of the temporary Bogner stores that opened this fall in New York City on Madison Avenue, Greenwich Avenue in Greenwich CT, and Oakbrook Centre near Chicago.
Bogner was founded in 1932 by Willy Bogner who imported skis, equipment, and Norwegian knit wear. His wife Maria revolutionized fashion in 1948 when she designed trousers made out of stretch material with stirrups — the dictionary now refers to these as ‘Bogners’. The iconic “B” zipper was introduced to garments in 1955. Willy Bogner Junior launched Bogner’s first ski collection in 1971 called ‘Formula W’. Last year Bogner relaunched its classic jackets with a modern interpretation and is now in expansion mode.
The resort town of Whistler, British Columbia, is also home to a Bogner ‘partner store’ run by a local franchisee. The only other North American storefront for Bogner is a permanent store in New York City’s Soho area. Bogner operates stores globally with a focus on European cities and resort towns known for skiing.
In Halton Hills, Bogner recently launched an outlet store at the Toronto Premium Outlets which will remain operational into the spring of 2022. The large storefront replaced Moncler at the outlet centre which is home to numerous luxury brands.
Bogner also has a Canadian website that will soon include ecommerce at: bognercanada.com.
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