Clothing retailer Gotstyle is growing its brand with the opening of a new store in The Well, a massive mixed-use development in downtown Toronto.
Melissa Austria, Founder of the retail brand, said the new 3,000 square foot store will open in early 2024.
Gotstyle, which began in 2005, also has a 7,000-square-foot-store in the historic Distillery District in Toronto.
“We had the other store on the west side at Bathurst. Our landlord wanted to increase our rent. We decided not to renew our lease. We had a closing party February 2020 and then two weeks later the first (COVID) lockdown happened so we completely lucked out that way,” said Austria.
“We’re super excited to be back on the west side. It’s just that much closer to our core clientele. Our core clientele are guys who are single, working, and going out a lot.”
Gotstyle is a menswear store, offering formal to business casual, custom suits, and personal styling services. It also has a women’s collection.
Austria said it was important for the retailer to be back on the west side of Toronto.
“Unfortunately with the way traffic is in Toronto, you can’t get across the city anymore. So a lot of my guys who live on the west side they’re telling me they can’t get to my store. If they want to buy a blazer for a night out they cannot get there because it will take them 45 minutes to an hour,” she said.
“So we realized that shopping is based on convenience of course. We know we need to be more convenient to our clients. We’re excited with what’s going on with The Well. The space itself, in terms of the actual building, is incredible. They did an amazing job of really mixing the different types of material so it’s got more depth to it as a building compared to any other mall. I like the fact that there’s 750 parking spots and that’s just for the office building. So I can imagine on the weekend there’s going to be a lot of parking spots available. It’s definitely one thing I hear over and over again from my clients that there’s no parking in the Distillery.”
Austria said she has always wanted to scale the business.
“But I really find in retail you either need to have one or you need to have 10. I find anything in between that is tougher to manage. So I think just having the one or two stores and then really pushing out on the digital aspects that we’re trying to do but make the store that we do have, the physical space that we do have, make that be an amazing experience,” she said.
“At The Well we will be getting a liquor licence. The cash desk is an actual bar. It’s one of those old school wooden bars with the footrest on the bottom.
“We are as most businesses are, everyone is looking for the next evolution of shopping. We are working on a couple programs, including an expansion of our live shopping. We’re definitely going to be using AI for made to measure, to make our customers lives easier where we’re managing your wardrobe to take that stress level off. We’re working on a couple of things in that direction.”
