Italian luxury brand Dolce & Gabbana will be opening a standalone store this year at Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre. It will replace a flagship store on Bloor Street in Toronto which has operated for almost a decade.
The Yorkdale Dolce & Gabbana store will span almost 3,500 square feet in a retail space most recently occupied by Aritzia-owned brand Wilfred. Other luxury brands are located adjacent — Valentino operates a store on one side and Emporio Armani recently opened a store on the other side. Holt Renfrew, which operates across the hall, features mall-facing concession brand stores for Gucci, Fendi, Dior, Prada, Chanel and others.
The new-concept Yorkdale Dolce & Gabbana will feature marble throughout, including a marble facade primarily in black-and-white. The store will carry the brand’s range of women’s and men’s ready-to-wear fashions as well as bags, footwear, jewellery, accessories and fragrances.
Yorkdale gives Dolce & Gabbana a greater opportunity to target new shoppers looking for entry-level products such as footwear, bags and t-shirts — The Bloor Street flagship has limited foot traffic according to a source, and its existing base of clients tend to buy bigger-ticket items.
Dolce & Gabbana opened its Canadian flagship store at 111 Bloor Street West in Toronto in July of 2013. The 7,000 square foot store had been quietly for lease for years and it will shutter in the summer to coincide with the opening of the Yorkdale store.
Hiring for the Yorkdale Dolce & Gabbana store will begin in a few months, and we’ll update this article with more information.
Dolce & Gabbana womenswear and menswear can be found at several Holt Renfrew stores in Canada as well as at Saks Fifth Avenue in Toronto. Harry Rosen carries some of the menswear line.
The Dolce & Gabbana brand was founded in 1985 in Legnano, Italy, by designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana. The house specializes in ready-to-wear, handbags, accessories, and cosmetics and licenses its name and branding to Luxottica for eyewear.
Yorkdale is now home to the the most extensive and comprehensive clustering of luxury brand stores in Canada, making the mall one of the top on the continent for its selection of big-name brands. More luxury brands are said to be on the way and we’ll be reporting on these periodically when new information becomes available.
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The question for me now is who is left on Bloor?
Obviously there is still a handful of retailors and a large presence by Holt Renfrew’s flagship allows presence for most who have left, but it begs the question, what is going on at Bloor St?