LVMH-owned Spanish luxury brand Loewe has opened its first standalone store location in Canada at Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre. The brand entered Canada wholesale several years ago and is now expanding distribution into retail.
The Yorkdale store spans 3,922 square feet of retail space on one level (the second largest in North America), carrying Loewe’s range of ready-to-wear for women and men as well as bag leather goods, footwear, eyewear, jewellery, accessories and other categories including fragrances, home scents and candles. Loewe has expanded its product assortment under designer Jonathan Anderson to become a lifestyle brand.
The store’s interior includes several ‘rooms’, including a wooden ‘gazebo’ design that is a first in North America for Loewe. The brand says that the store design is based on creative director Jonathan Anderson’s CASA LOEWE concept, which involves combining the refinement of retail with the intimacy of an art collector’s home.
Ceramic is an important material used for the store. Loewe’s Yorkdale facade features blue handmade ceramic tiles, while the interior features the same handmade tiles in green, blue and silver. Earth tones accent the space while walls are made of poured concrete. Other materials include brass, glass, and turned iron, and there are several antique ceramic vessels and contemporary podiums in various finishes in the space. Furniture includes Berin club chairs and angular Utrecht armchairs, interspersed with iron martini tables. A paper lamp by artist Isamu Noguchi hangs from the ceiling. The store also contains two bespoke wool rugs featuring reproductions of British textile artist John Allen’s tapestries — including the sweeping landscape of The River Reaches the Sea Buirling Gap.
Art work is featured throughout the store. On the walls, British painter Eliot Hodgkin’s botanical pencil sketches capture intricate organic forms, while Swedish artist Cecilia Edefalk’s Luz (2022) is part of a wider body of work using repetition to investigate charged memories and shifting perception. German photographer Jochen Lempert’s Subjective photography series (2010) also investigates the wonders of the natural world, bridging the artistic and the scientific in his abstracted, monochrome images.
Loewe’s Yorkdale store is located in a new luxury wing being developed in the centre run of the centre. About 60,000 square feet of space is being repurposed with other confirmed tenants including Brunello Cucinelli and Loro Piana. Others will be announced in collaboration with the mall’s landlord Oxford Properties.
Despite being a brand nearly 170 years old, Loewe’s first substantial presence in Canada was in 2015 when Nordstrom opened a shop-in-store for the brand at its Vancouver location. Loewe boutiques then opened inside Nordstrom’s downtown Toronto and Yorkdale stores.
Holt Renfrew subsequently picked up Loewe, which is said to now be the top-selling wholesale leather goods brand at Holts. Loewe has a small leather goods presence in a space at Holts Yorkdale as well as at Bloor Street in Toronto and in downtown Vancouver — a range of ready-to-wear is also available at the Yorkdale, Bloor and Vancouver Holts stores. With Nordstrom’s exit from Canada last year, Holt Renfrew is now the primary retailer in Canada for Loewe, which is also carried at The Webster on Scollard Street in Toronto.
Sources told Retail Insider that Loewe had been in talks to open a store at Oakridge Park in Vancouver in 2025. It’s not known if a lease deal has been done. The luxury-heavy shopping centre will open on Vancouver’s West Side in about a year.
Loewe is considered to be one of the world’s hottest brands right now, which means that sales at the new Yorkdale store are expected to be robust out the gate. Lyst recently named Loewe as the world’s third hottest brand in its Q4 2023 global brand ranking.
Yorkdale is adding luxury retailers at a rapid pace with the opening of its new luxury wing, and is expected to become one of the world’s top centres in terms of luxury brand offerings. Robert Horst, VP of Retail at Oxford Properties, said in an interview that the goal of the landlord is to make Yorkdale a global retail destination. Retail Insider will continue to report on new tenants in the luxury wing when permitted.
Loewe was founded in Madrid in 1846, making leather goods for royals and other affluent clients. The brand continued to grow modestly over the decades and was relatively obscure until it was acquired by LVMH in 1996. The brand has grown rapidly over the past decade following the appointment of creative director Jonathan Anderson in 2013.
Today, Loewe operates standalone stores in major markets globally and it also wholesales in various upscale retailers. In the United States, Loewe operates eight full-priced stores in New York City (Soho), Beverly Hills (Rodeo Drive), Orange County (South Coast Plaza), Santa Clara CA (Valley Fair), Dallas (Highland Park Village), Honolulu (Ala Moana Center), Las Vegas (Wynn), and in Miami (Miami Design District). The brand also operates two outlet stores in the United States, and can be found in retailers such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman in New York City. The brand also has stores in major markets globally as well as concession and wholesale distribution.
