The Canucks Are Coming: Aritzia's Temporary Store Opens Sunday

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As Target heads to our neighbors up north, Canada is gracing us with a staple of their own. Aritzia, geared towards women from 18 to 35 (think a mixture of Lulu Lemon, Intermix, and Madewell) will be temporarily taking over the third floor of 524 Broadway (at Spring Street) until they land feet first and make their permanent mark in May in the form of a 10,000 square-foot multi-level shopping destination. And they're doing it soon: Initial reports had the store opening tomorrow, but now WWD gives the launch date as Sunday.

Aritzia stocks items from everyone from Rag & Bone to Vanessa Bruno (their Soho store will consist of a 30 to 40 percent mix of other brands), but it also houses eight proprietary, in-house labels. CEO Brian Hill explains the set-up to WWD: "They're there to stand on their own as individual brands and to complement the other brands. They're not private label. We have full design, pattern and technical teams and sourcing capabilities. We can control the fit and there's consistency in the style and quality."

New York is just one stop on the Aritizia hit list. The chain has tackled 48 different locations across the great red white and blue, with current shops situated in Chicago, SF, Portland, and Seattle. With the drywall not even finished on their Soho location, Hill already has plans to expand, citing multiple new destinations where the Canadian clothes might hang, including Fifth Avenue.

Will loyalists of Scoop, Intermix, and Opening Ceremony be responsive to the Canadian kid taking over Broadway in Spring? Hill thinks so. "I'm fairly comfortable with the competition—from Opening Ceremony to Intermix. SoHo is predominantly single-brand stores. It's a testament to how good the real estate is and how good the customers are." And as we all know, the Soho customers are goooooood.—Yale Breslin
· Canada's Aritzia Arrives in New York [WWD, subscription req'd]
· Aritzia's Spring Show in Toronto: Chain Plans to Roll Out Across USA [Racked National]
· Aritzia [Official Site]