Why Canadian menswear retailers are betting big on luxury

Canadian retail has seen better days. After nine years in business, Nordstrom left the country in 2023, and the collapse of the 355-year-old Hudson’s Bay two years later left a giant hole in the nation’s retail landscape. But amid the headline-making closures, an unlikely market is attracting new investment: premium and luxury menswear.

Harry Rosen just opened an ambitious new 38,000-square-foot, three-storey Yorkville flagship 200 metres away from its longstanding Bloor Street location in Toronto, after renovating a handful of other stores across the country. Holt Renfrew expanded its Bloor Street menswear space, Queen Street fashion boutique Absolutely Fabrics introduced menswear at its newly opened Summerhill location and Winnipeg’s tailoring-focused Modern Ambition opened in Yorkville over the summer.

Harry Rosen’s new store is a clear example of how luxury retailers are thinking about physical space. The location features a bar and lounge, an outdoor patio and a private-client floor with its own bar, fitting rooms and space for wedding parties, trunk shows and brand events. The sales floor, meanwhile, will display fewer items displayed in more complete looks, with additional inventory kept out of sight.

For the brand’s president Ian Rosen, there’s a lot of confidence behind the investment. “When we put money into a store, it pays us back,” he said. “The client gets more excited, and new clients show up as well.”

Jonathan Elias, co-owner of Toronto menswear boutique Lost and Found, echoed that sentiment. Three years ago, the 15-year-old business moved to a new, larger location to handle increased sales. Along with the new space came higher-priced brands such as cult Japanese label Auralee (jeans, $905; button-up shirts, $735) and $1,200 heritage shoes from J.M. Weston and Alden.

“There’s been this natural progression of the store itself maturing and our taste maturing, and seeing a need in the market for higher-end products,” Elias said.

These openings coupled with high-profile closings suggest that retail’s difficulties aren’t being felt evenly. As the middle of the market gets squeezed, Canadian menswear appears to be splitting into affordable basics and expensive purchases worth seeking out, saving for and, crucially, leaving the house to experience. As Rosen put it, “I see our competition as, ‘I could do this sitting on the couch.’”

A recent report from global commercial real estate services firm JLL describes Canadian retail as an increasingly permanent barbell, with value and premium businesses gaining ground while the middle struggles. Dollar- and thrift-store openings more than doubled in 2025 while luxury investment continued to be concentrated in specific destinations such as Vancouver’s Oakridge Park and Robson-Alberni corridor.

The widening wealth gap helps explain the divide; the report states that the wealthiest 20 per cent of Canadian households now control nearly two-thirds of the country’s net worth, while the least wealthy 40 per cent hold just 3.1 per cent.

Lost and Found’s Elias sees that playing out on the ground, with customers bypassing mid-tier products. “People are really conscious of how they spend their money, and I don’t think that they’re going to accept mediocrity any more,” he said.

He also noted that he’s seen a “hyper-education” over the last six to eight years with customers learning more deeply about fabrics and construction. “For a lot of people now, it is their passion, and they enjoy it, and they want to save up to get something aspirational.”

Rosen has witnessed a similar trend with Harry Rosen’s custom suit business. “It’s on fire,” he said. “People want one-of-one pieces. They want to design it themselves. When they’re paying in the premium price points, they want to feel like, ‘This is for me.’”

Louis Cheslaw, a menswear writer and contributing editor at GQ, offered another explanation for the shift: The cheap stuff isn’t actually that cheap any more. When a pair of relatively ordinary jeans costs three figures, he said, consumers might decide they “may as well get something really great.” Cheslaw argued that high prices also encourage the kind of hyper-education Elias described.

“When it costs that much, you need to understand why,” he said. “You don’t want to feel like you’re making a reckless decision, so you want to understand what you’re paying for. I think learning about the fabric and construction can sometimes be as much about justification as interest.”

The increasingly knowledgeable menswear customer isn’t confined to Canada. A number of Canadian boutiques have achieved international recognition as tastemakers, building customer bases around specific buys that shoppers may not be able to find locally.

Last month, Absolutely Fabrics was included in the Business of Fashion’s Best Fashion Stores in the World. The owners of curated Vancouver shop Neighbour, Saager Dilawri and Karyna Schultz, made the Business of Fashion 500, the publication’s annual list of people shaping the global fashion industry. Fashion media brand HighSnobiety called it “menswear’s most important store.”

That online reach hasn’t lessened the need for brick-and-mortar investment. In March, Neighbour opened a new 3,000-square-foot space in Vancouver’s Gastown next to its womenswear store. Edmonton’s Henry Singer moved into an elaborate new ICE District flagship in 2024, complete with a barbershop and an Italian-style cocktail bar. Malls including Oakridge Park in Vancouver, Royalmount in Montreal and Yorkdale in Toronto continue to attract luxury brands such as Rolex, Tom Ford and Saint Laurent. And high-end streetwear brand Bape opened on Vancouver’s Alberni Street earlier this year.

Even stores with popular online shops see the IRL experience as the most important part of the equation. “There’s no way that you can mimic the in-store experience online,” said Elias. “You can’t go in, you can’t meet our staff, you can’t hang out with us, you can’t see the space, you can’t touch the clothes. We want it to be somewhere where you can kind of get lost and find things that you would never see before.”

Harry Rosen is applying the same logic nationwide. “Every time that you leave the home and go to a store, it has to be a value-add experience,” Rosen said. “It has to be exciting and it has to be interesting. [The new flagship] definitely accomplishes that.”

These experiences can turn an expensive purchase into more than a transaction. Menswear writer Cheslaw thinks that for some consumers, the appeal of building a lasting wardrobe may also reflect a general feeling of stalled adulthood.

“Maybe you can’t buy a house. Maybe you can’t afford to have kids yet,” he said. “But you can at least start building a collection of clothing that you won’t have to repurchase because it lasts a long time. There’s something grounding about that.”