Reitmans, Le Château, Dynamite, La Vie en Rose, Laura, Tristan, Marie Claire, Lolë, Frank + Oak, Aldo – and then some. Montreal fashion retailers have been a pervasive force on the Canadian landscape for almost a century, since Herman and Sarah Reitman founded a shop on St-Laurent Blvd., in 1926. Even earlier, department stores, starting with Dupuis Frères in 1868, then Morgan’s, Eaton’s and Ogilvy’s – among many others – made their mark on Ste-Catherine St.

The retail chains have gone forth and multiplied, thriving for the most part. Their secret: the powerful vertical model, in which the company controls every part of the production chain from sourcing material to designing stores.

Some have faltered – Bedo and Jacob are no more – and some are struggling. But others are booming, embracing the new digital world and going international.

Two successful startups are Frank & Oak and SSense, both of which started online only and then turned to bricks and mortar. And then there is Aldo, which went from a kiosk in Le Château stores in 1972, then branched out to become a global powerhouse in the shoe business. With 3,000 points of sale, 25,000 associates and an estimated $2 billion in sales annually, the company has constantly innovated and embraced technology.

An Aldo store in Manila.

Now founder Aldo Bensadoun has donated $25 million to found the Bensadoun School of Retail Management at McGill University.

Quebec is an entrepreneurial society, ready to embrace change, says Herschel Segal, who founded Le Château as a menswear emporium in 1959 on Victoria Square with a “Whale of a Sale.” But that was not Segal’s creative spark. At the start of the swinging 1960s, Segal discovered Carnaby St., loved the fashion and brought it home. That was the start of Youthquake and a whole new era in fashion for the masses.

A Le Château store in the 1960s.

Le Château campaign shots from the 1970s, left, and 2009. LE CHATEAU/PVM

“What happened in the ’60s broke the mold,’’ Segal says. “There were no boundaries like there were in the past. You did what you wanted, smoked what you wanted, slept with who you wanted. It was freedom, a burst of freedom that swept the fashion world.

“Fashion was part of the revolution. There’s another one going on now.”

You have to look at the customer’s changing taste, Segal says.

Le Château campaign shot from 1990-91. COURTESY LE CHATEAU

Fast forward five decades and meet two new entrepreneurs, Ethan Song and Hicham Ratnani of Frank & Oak. They started online in 2012, rapidly ramped up the menswear collection, opened physical stores, developed a women’s collection and opened a women’s store.

“Today, every brand needs to be a global brand. It’s this balance of being authentic locally but building a customer base globally,” Song says.

Frank + Oak’s campaign shots. “In clothing and apparel, in some ways it’s not so much what you buy but how it makes you feel,’’ says Ethan Song.

“We recognized the needs of a new generation of customers,’’ he adds.

Also, he notes, they recognized that the new form of distribution is digital – either through social media or e-commerce. “The channels are always evolving – in the end it’s about being present in your customer’s life and building a very clear brand identity.”

Song reports a community of 3 million members globally: “In clothing and apparel, in some ways it’s not so much what you buy but how it makes you feel,’’ he says. “So building a community around the product allows you to express that.”

At last count, Frank + Oak had about 10 permanent stores. “Physical experience is complementary to the digital. But also it allows us to be localized, to be present in our neighbourhoods. So it allows us to build communities as well.

“The key to retail success in today’s world is to really know who your customer is and stay focussed on that customer.”

The post Montreal’s retail experience: Chains, chains, change appeared first on Eva Friede.

I wanted to write my traditional year in fashion wrap – how Canada actually made it to No. 5 on the New York Times list of fashion stories of the year, much to its surprise. That’s the Sophie Grégoire Trudeau effect, of course. So that’s what it takes to get noticed – not Canada Goose or Mackage, not Aldo or Lululemon or Aritzia, not our notable ex-pats like Erdem or Dean and Dan Caten of DSquared. Not LVMH wunderkinds Thomas Tait (a Montrealer in London) nor Vejas Kruszewski of Toronto (Who? He won a special LVMH prize of 150,000 euros this year.)

So be it. We’re still looking for stars and muses. SGT has made better choices of late, choosing (with Jessica Mulroney) labels like Judith & Charles, Sentaler, Éditions de Robes, Iris Setlakwe – which is right and proper and let’s hope Canadians and beyond are paying attention and buying.

Sophie Grégoire Trudeau is making a fashion name for Canada.

I wanted to write about the Vetements phenom, in which oversized sweats with the DHL logo or the brand’s own name emblazoned on garments became cult fashion items, catapulting the collective’s head designer, Demna Gvasalia, to fame and fortune, as well as the creative directorship of Balenciaga. The Vetements spring show, at Galeries Lafayette and kicking off couture week, featured 18 collaborations, from Manolo Blahnik to Juicy Couture and Canada Goose.

Meanwhile, Alber Elbaz, late of Lanvin, remains out of a job.

More fashion disruption came as some designers opted out of the circus schedule of shows, choosing see-now, buy now formats, and nixing pre-collections. In Canada, though, there’s is hardly a circus: Toronto Fashion Week was cancelled when IMG pulled out as a sponsor, and in Montreal, Fashion Preview chugged along for a sixth season, with a modest showing of local designers while the Festival Mode & Design celebrated fashion on the street for a 16th season. In 2017, however, we might get another contender for a showcase week, with Melanie Trevett’s planned Digital Fashion Week.

Duy at Fashion Preview

I wanted to write about some of the top Montreal and Canadian stories: Frank + Oak launched women’s wear; Marie Saint Pierre launched a men’s collection. Parachute – the iconic (and I don’t use that word lightly) Montreal ’80s brand – reappeared in a collaboration with White Walls Worldwide, a design and manufacturing collective.

The retail scene is much on my mind, from a business and personal perspective.

All Saints and Pinko came to Montreal, the latter at Les Cours Mont Royal, which devoted 5,000 square feet of prime retail space to a Barbie museum, which opened in February. Harry Rosen upsized, while Birks will downsize to make room for a hotel in the historic flagship onPhillips Square. M0851 is on a roll, opening locations in Montreal and beyond. Ditto Rudsak.

Reitmans and Le Château, meanwhile, ramped up their online sales dramatically – and presumably helpfully.

The M0851 HH58, which broke the internet when Julie Snyder wore one.

Meanwhile Uniqlo, Nordstrom and Saks landed – variously – in Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver. Saks and its discount offshoot, Off Fifth, are due in Anjou and Montreal in 2017 and  2018, but there have been no announcements about Nordstrom or Uniqlo here.

Ogilvy’s is more than the bagpiper and tartan, says marketing VP Steeve Lapierre. It is a part of the canvas of Montreal. La Maison OGILVY

Ogilvy marks its 150th anniversary.

As Ogilvy marks its 150th anniversary and Holt Renfrew prepares to move down the street to merge with with it in an expanded luxury superstore  – with adjacent shopping concourse and Four Seasons Hotel – de la Montagne St. is having a mini-Renaissance. Christofle just opened a freestanding boutique next to Montblanc, Suitsupply and Abe & Mary’s have hoardings announcing their imminent arrival, and pop-up Montagne is snugly ensconced. A Montreal retailer is said to be moving into the space vacated by the La Marque pop-up.

Inside Montagne, the cool new popup on de la Montagne.

Suitsupply is slated to open in February.

Saks Off Fifth is skedded to open in a newly expanded Eaton Centre (taking in Complexe Les Ailes), while the full price Saks is slated for frontage on the de Maisonneuve Blvd. side of The Bay, both in 2018. The first Off Fifth opening was announced this week, at Galeries d’Anjou in summer 2017, while a Premium Outlets location in Mirabel is coming at an unnamed date.

Old Montreal may be thriving – SSENSE, the great online success story – is there, after all. But don’t get me started. For most of the year, the city was impossibly impassable, so I have not gone to investigate, and more to the point, to shop.

Detours galore AND spelling errors.

But shopping I did, mainly in downtown Montreal, but also at Rockland (do read on to learn about my “influencer” debut.)

Plastered all over Rockland.

At Aritzia, which went public this year, I bought a wonderful wool scarf with a smokey grey-dusty rose print – even though I hate to buy on a no-returns policy.

After hunting incessantly for years, I finally found my “Happy” bag, a Lanvin. Now I am obsessed with acquiring a Balenciaga City – I did find the Velo model marked down dramatically at Holt Renfrew, then decided it was too big, returned it and discovered the markdown was an error. Oh well, but it was too big.

New bag, new dress, older scarves.

I picked up a few classic Norma Kamali pieces – a perfect long-sleeved T and the convertible five-in-one dress – all black and frustratingly lost in my closet most of the time. (Which makes me go out and shop more black dresses.) But I have resurrected my silver Kamali sleeping bag coat, and just wear it in the cold freezing rain even if I look like a stylish moonwalker.

At Simons, I fell in love with an oversize gold velvet frock from Nehera, a Czech-Slovak line.It’s definitely a designer garment, not just a sack, in the way it falls and drapes and goes with anything from jeans for casual wear to an over-kimono for a funky fancy look.

Which brings me to my usual fashion resolution – to buy less and buy better, which I mostly did this year. A shiny rose gold sequin cami may be the big exception. But heck, it was the holidays and I love glitter.

I even acquired an Hermès scarf, which, I am sad to say, I save for special occasions – special being times when I am unlikely to lose it.

Me and Andrew McNally on the catwalk for Reluxe. Photo Eva Blue

And I managed a few firsts this year – a runway debut for Le Chaînon at the Festival Mode & Design, walking – in a Norwegian Wood kimono – with the charming Andrew McNally. Then, I was plastered all over Rockland Centre and the internet as part of its fall campaign. Funny to be on the other side of the camera. Little by little I am buying up the items I wore – a black Judith and Charles slip dress, and from Stuart Weitzman, I await delivery of the Cleveland boot, a tall, dressy non-winter affair that I believe will complete my wardrobe.

The Cleveland boot, photographed as part of the Rockland fall campaign.

From Helmer at Fashion Preview. Pink appears to be the colour of spring 2017. But don’t look for me in bloomers or panniers.

And yet. A quick perusal of the fashion magazines got me lusting for fresh fashion. For spring look for shocking and soft pinks – been there, done that, and will do it again – yellows (not my thing), khakis, more sleeve and shoulder play, more volume and more stripes and sportiness.

And look for Comme des Garçons fever, as the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute exhibition will celebrate visionary Rei Kawakubo this spring.

Happy new year!

The post In the pink: looking back on 2016 and forward to a rosy 2017 appeared first on Eva Friede.

So says Randy Harris, president of Trendex North America.

From Ohio, based in Florida, and specializing in Canadian, Mexican retail and e-commerce apparel markets, Harris shared his Canadian apparel insights at a recent meeting of Vêtement Québec – his 13th time as a guest of the industry association.

With blunt, no-nonsense and speedy delivery, Harris gave us the goods.

The big picture? Canadian apparel sales grew 4.8 per cent in 2015, and 4.4 per cent in the first six months of 2016, led by strong sales in Ontario and B.C., as well as the athleisure and men’s suiting sectors. Other factors, according to Harris: less cross-border shopping by Canadians – and more by Americans shopping here with their high-value greenbacks.

And while many see doom and gloom about Quebec, the province is actually performing above average, Harris says, with 5.4 per cent growth in apparel specialty stores in the first nine months of 2016, compared with booming B.C.’s 9.8 per cent.

“When you look at the economic forecast, it’s very positive,’’ Harris said of Quebec.

Another bugaboo cited by Harris: the notion that Canadian retailers just can’t win in the U.S. The winners? Aldo, Aritzia, Lululemon, Dynamite, Roots – and to be determined, Canada Goose, which opened in New York last month.

A-listers at the meeting of Vêtement Québec, from left: Randy Harris (Trendex), Debbie Zakaib (mmode), Elliot Lifson (Canadian Apparel Federation and Peerless), Eric Wazana (Vêtement Québec and Yoga Jeans), Bernard Mariette (Coalision, Lolë). PHOTO VETEMENT QUEBEC

Other insights, from the seminar, newsletters and an interview with Harris (Figures are from StatsCan and Harris’s research):

*The projected growth in apparel sales for all of 2016 is 3.3 per cent.

*Department stores are losing market share, while discount or off-price retailers (read TJ  Maxx) are gaining.

*The Bay is in trouble, according to Harris. “Everybody is taking a little piece out of them,’’ he said in a followup interview, citing branded discount goods from Off Fifth, Nordstrom’s The Rack and TJX Canada’s Marshalls’ and Winners as one threat, Simons’s expansion, and full-price Saks and Nordstrom skimming the cream off the top.

“The Bay is going to die a death of a thousand cuts over the next five years,’’ he said.

* On Holt Renfrew, he is equally pessimistic. “Holt Renfrew is moving at glacial speed when it comes to its web site,’’ he said. “It’s inexcusable that they don’t have a fully operational apparel web site.

“They didn’t up their game like Harry Rosen did. It’s going to cost them dearly.”

* The largest apparel organizations in Canada are: Walmart, TJX Canada and Gap Canada (three banners), with TJX soon to overtake Walmart. Gap Canada is the largest specialty chain, followed by Reitmans.

Good news from Reitmans; goodish news from Le Château:

*Le Château is closing stores  – a good thing – and making huge e-commerce gains – 55.1 per cent in the third quarter this year, but there remains a disconnect between the new merchandise and image and old stores, Harris says. More capitalization is needed to renovate old stores more quickly, he said. The latest figures, for the third quarter of 2016, show comparative store sales up 1.8 per cent. “What’s driving them down is their fashion outlet stores.”

* Reitmans is also closing stores – it now has 719 stores among its seven banners. The latest results, reported by the company the day after Harris’s presentation, show a 1.2 per cent increase in sales for the first nine months of 2016, despite a reduction of 81 stores. Same store sales increased 7.5 per cent – and e-comm increased 48.3 per cent.

* Simons is becoming a national powerhouse, with sales forecast at about $600 million this year.

*Aritzia, which went public this year, is on track for $414 million in sales in 2016 – and will become a billion-dollar company in two years.

*Apparel exports are down 1 to 1.5 per cent for 2016, from $1.76 billion to $1.74 billion. About 80 per cent of exports has been to the U.S., at least since 2010, but new markets for Canadian apparel are not emerging. Manufacturing is forecast to drop by 8.7 per cent this year.

* No surprise: Canada is behind the U.S. in e-comm, with online sales accounting 7.2 per cent of apparel sales in 2015. In the U.S., e-comm accounts for 18.6 per cent of apparel sales. That’s our $1.7 billion (U.S.) compared with $60.2 billion in the U.S. in the  NAFTA apparel e-comm market. With online sales the fastest growing segment of the $303.8 billion U.S. dollar retail apparel market, Harris recently launched a newsletter offering insights on the NAFTA e-comm apparel market.

*Top e-comm apparel companies in Canada: Hudson’s Bay, Sears, Lululemon, Mark’s, Frank & Oak.

*By the end of 2017, new foreign apparel entries will slow to a trickle.

*Four apparel chains, mostly from Quebec, will go out of business or file for protection from 2017 to 2020.

*The Trump factor: “2017 should turn out to be a normal year, unless oil prices again crater and Donald Trump does something stupid.”

The post Retail report: we’re shopping, not dropping appeared first on Eva Friede.

This week, Monday was quiet. But Tuesday, there were some 10 events around town for fashion and beauty bloggers and the general beau monde.

Let’s start with C2, the conference on creativity and commerce that has been mushrooming in its three short years. It has now reached the pinnacle of Montreal trademarks – the jazz fest, Cirque du Soleil, the Grand Prix (Oh my god! That’s coming up!).

Martha Stewart was a headliner this year, along with a gaggle of business leaders, thinkers and even a Nobel Prize winner. Some folks just take it all in. Me, I am afraid of dates – and the thought of a brain date is downright terrifying. As is eating cod bladder chips, concocted by Newfoundland chef Jeremy Charles of Raymonds.  

I did plunge into the bubble bath (clear, hard plastic bubbles) and found it quite relaxing until I tried to get up – difficult with one hand clutching my cell phone and away from the walls. A Washington Post photographer found that amusing or interesting, and started snapping away. I have yet to see myself on the front page of the Post, quel (or is that quelle?) relief.

The bubble bath.

Resumés of several speakers.

Aldo’s Frisk

Patrik Frisk, appointed CEO of Aldo Group in October 2014, spoke of the changes and challenges in the retail world, and of Aldo in particular, which, as a retailer, online seller, wholesaler and franchiser, and with 2,000 stores worldwide, is undergoing a major transformation, he said. He  spoke of the “end consumer,’’ presumably meaning the target or simply the buyer.

What he knows about that person is that he or she is in charge today, he said, recalling all that has changed over the decades. The company used to pick great real estate, build nice stores and the customers would come. In the 1950s, the store was god, the ‘60s was the era of brands, and now it’s about the consumer journey, Frisk said.

On Monday mornings in the past, the team would look at what was needed for the stores and get it there by Tuesday.

Now, the insights come from multiple channels – CRM, social, digital, brand trackers, and wholesale.

And stores are more like service points and less about transactions, he added.

More insights from Frisk:

Clients are more informed, so better staff training is required.

People buy shoes as a reward, to mark a milestone and for occasions.

Clients want their shoes faster to market, long lasting and affordable.

Overall message: Mr. Frisk has his work cut out for him.

Vice’s Suroosh Alvi

The Vice story is so fascinating on so many counts. Suroosh Alvi was candid and amusing on how he started his global media empire in Montreal in 1994. “It was a dark year in Montreal,’’ he said, deadpan.

He had been in rehab, and his goal was to write for the weekly Hour or Mirror, he said in conversation with Adam Gollner. A job was not forthcoming.

“I was a magazine junkie. I was a real junkie,’’ he said. “I channelled all the energy I used to put into self-destructive behavior into this magazine.”

He wanted to create real content and “wrote embarrassing editorials about the search for authenticity,’’ he said, with no such thing as aspiring to objectivity.

They tried everything from a fashion division to music to Vice guide to travel DVDs, which is where Spike Jones came in  and “taught us how to make it work.”

The game changer came with an article and DVD on the gun markets of Pakistan, which made it on to the home page of CNN. Vice has since reported on Baghdad, Congo, Egypt, Cambodia, Saddam’s shadow and much more.

Now, there’s a deal with HBO, with a daily news show to come in a few months. And Viceland, a TV channel, is set to expand to 20 more countries, with a deal for Quebec in the works.

Byron and Dexter Peart at C2MTL show a slide of their 5-year-old selves.

Byron and Dexter Peart of Want Les Essentiels

Twins Byron and Dexter have always had their act and their message together. Marking 10 years in the business, in which they have managed to build a global luxury brand from Montreal, they took to the main stage at C2 with a presentation as slick and minimal as their bags.

Their message is about want and need.

“This idea of wanting – we think it needs a counterbalance. That counterbalance is need,’’ Dexter said.

Added Byron: “Fashion is inherently built on newness and change. It’s a perfect balance of creativity and commerce.” But, he pointed out, it’s also a perfect recipe for making products not meant to last.

They talked a bit about the fashion cycle, saying it in in “extreme disalignment between what the consumer wants and needs.”

Their guiding principles “to navigate what is essential:” a thing must have purpose, be intelligent, beautiful and universal.

The cutest slide at the conference (with the exception perhaps of some of the robots in the artificial intelligence talks): a picture of the twins, age 5, on the tarmac by an Air Jamaica plane. On the ground, a cool vintage suitcase. As they said, they were early cool travellers.

Ethan Song and Hicham Ratnani of Frank & Oak

Another Montreal success duo, Ethan Song and Hicham Ratnani of Frank & Oak, the online store that is rapidly expanding in bricks and mortar, also took their story to the main stage.

Song spoke about his penchant for black jeans and Ratnani’s liking for white sneakers, then proceeded to scroll through the thousands of offerings on Asos.

Ethan Song on the grounds the Arsenal, where C2MTL is held..

There are so many options, Song said, so consumers can’t choose.

So if you’re a brand, how do you stand out? Stores are closing, e-comm struggling, but Song sees opportunities. His messages:

As a brand, you are builidng a relationship with a community.

The product and the experience are merging.

“Our purpose is to help a full generation of men not only to dress better but to live better,’’ he said.

For the future, the next wave of technology is when digital meets physical.

Concluding, Song said that there is no product that can stay differentiated for more than 24 months. So the ability to move fast will mean success.

Martha Stewart

The session opened with a “brain-off” between Martha Stewart and P.K. Subban, the hockey hero with heart and soul. Mindball, as the game was called, challenged the pair’s ability to stay stress-free. Subban won the first go; Stewart wanted another round and wound up winning two of three.

Whatever.

Martha Stewart. Photo Allen McEachern for C2MTL

The talk lent little insight into the creative process of the doyenne of living and even though she alluded to her prison term, back in 2005 – “I am more fearless than I was before. Life goes on. You learn to cope.” – there was nothing on that either.

We learned she lives in the country, raises chickens, eats meat, will not eat dirty farmed salmon that eat their own poop, keeps and rides horses and the like.

On tips for aging well, she suggested a green juice and going to the gym in the morning.

“Then you go to work.”

In an article titled Martha Stewart’s Big, Fat Marketing Miss, Marketing Magazine editor Shane Schick summed it up well. “What was missing here was any sense of how she had built such a successful brand, one she personifies and that has weathered the kind of reputational damage that makes Volkwagen’s recent troubles look insignificant.”

As for P.K., he was simply inspiring as a human being, with heart, soul and apparently some great hockey skills.

The post C2 Montreal: bubbles and brain dates, Want and need, Frank & Oak, Martha and more appeared first on Eva Friede.