Harry Rosen suits up for battle

Lar­ry Ro­sen may not be the Hoo­sier type, but he uses a basket­ball an­alogy to de­scribe the prime new lo­ca­tion of Har­ry Ro­sen in the Ri­deau Centre: “It’s a slam dunk. We have the best seat in the house at centre court right be­tween Nord­strom and Simons.”

Lo­cat­ed a few steps away from Har­ry Ro­sen’s ori­gin­al space on the shop­ping centre’s se­cond floor, which opened to much fan­fare in 1983, the 18,000-square-foot mens­wear store was buzz­ing with sounds of about 20 trades­men dur­ing a re­cent vis­it. The store, which will also fea­ture a standalone shoe bou­tique, is ex­pected to open in Oc­to­ber.

“Har­ry Ro­sen has had a long hist­ory with Ottawa and the Ri­deau Centre is the most im­port­ant mall by 100 miles. We jumped on the band­wag­on once Cad­il­lac Fairview (the mall owner) shared their vi­sion with us and we’ve been work­ing dir­ect­ly with them ever since,” says Ro­sen, who be­came CEO of the re­tail giant in 2000.

Cindy Vanbuskirk, gen­er­al man­ager of the Ri­deau Centre, says she’s elat­ed that one of Canada’s most prom­in­ent re­tail­ers is mak­ing a sig­nifi­cant in­vest­ment in the shop­ping centre.

“Har­ry Ro­sen is one of our ori­gin­al ten­ants. We have a long hist­ory to­geth­er.”

The Ri­deau Centre is cur­rent­ly in the midst of a $360-mil­lion ex­pan­sion, which is ex­pected to be com­plete in 2016.

 “We are con­fi­dent with the way the mar­ket is chan­ging and be­lieve it will bene­fit us. This is a mile­stone year for us. As we cele­brate the past, we are fo­cus­ing on the fu­ture and get­ting ready for the Amer­ican in­va­sion,” Ro­sen says.

“With Saks and Nord­strom mov­ing into Canada, we’re at centre court in all the same mar­kets. We’ve ac­cel­er­at­ed our ex­pan­sion pro­gram be­cause of this. Every­where they go, we’re up­grading and open­ing be­fore them.”

Cele­brat­ing 60 years of busi­ness and with an­nual sales of $300 mil­lion, Har­ry Ro­sen has much to cheer about these days. Since Har­ry Ro­sen and his broth­er Lou opened their first store­front in To­ron­to in 1954, the re­tail­er has built a stel­lar repu­ta­tion that is syn­onym­ous with style and ser­vice.

With 17 stores in sev­en ma­jor Can­ad­ian mar­kets and 1,000 em­ploy­ees, the com­pany of­fers cus­tom­ers some of the world’s lead­ing brands. It has weath­ered eco­nom­ic up­heav­al over the years by fol­low­ing a most­ly con­serv­a­tive path and shy­ing away from ex­pand­ing into the U.S. or abroad. The for­mu­la is a win­ning one, given that they have cor­nered more than 40 per cent of the high-end mens­wear mar­ket in Canada.

This spring, the Re­tail Council of Canada rec­og­nized Lar­ry Ro­sen as the Dis­tin­guished Re­tail­er of the Year, and the store was named one of the 10 most in­flu­en­tial mens­wear stores in North America by MR, a lead­ing in­dus­try maga­zine.

All of this adds to the fes­tive atmos­phere as the com­pany em­barks on an am­bi­tious $100-mil­lion cap­ital ex­pan­sion pro­gram — the most ag­gres­sive in its hist­ory — to up­date tired stores and un­veil new flag­ship stores.

There was a new ad cam­paign in the spring, a beefed-up online plan to grow sales to five times the cur­rent busi­ness, and more in­vest­ment in de­sign­er duds from top brands such as Dolce & Gabbana, Ver­sace, Etro, Zegna, Ralph Lau­ren and Brunello Cucinelli.

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“Our cli­ents are the lead­ers of the coun­try. Our com­pe­ti­tion is the best stores in the world. It’s inter­nation­al and we aren’t afraid of that,” says Ro­sen, 58.

 The old­est of Har­ry Ro­sen’s four chil­dren, Lar­ry worked in his fath­er’s stores through­out high school. When the com­pany started ex­pand­ing across the coun­try in the 1980s, he left his ca­reer as a cor­por­ate law­yer to join the fam­ily busi­ness.

“I was so proud of my father and excited by the national expansion, I just had to be a part of it. When we opened the store here in ’83, Pierre Trudeau met with my dad and wel­comed him to the mar­ket. The store has been a huge suc­cess from the get-go.”

Ro­sen de­scribes his Ottawa cus­tom­er as a so­phis­ti­cat­ed man who works in the pol­it­ic­al, bureau­crat­ic and dip­lo­mat­ic arena, the high-tech field or as an entre­pre­neur.

“Ottawa is a great suit and shirt town. An Ottawa man dress­es well, at­tends a lot of func­tions and em­bra­ces the busi­ness-cas­ual look.”

Har­ry Ro­sen, 83, stepped down from act­ive duty in 2005, but still spends many Sat­ur­days vis­it­ing one of eight stores bear­ing his name in the To­ron­to area, chat­ting with cus­tom­ers and staff. Lar­ry Ro­sen, who has three sons, ex­pects the fam­ily leg­acy to con­tinue as one of his sons has also joined the com­pany.

“We don’t live in ivory tow­ers. I per­son­al­ly call cus­tom­ers, an­swer Ask Har­ry ques­tions, vis­it the stores and look over mer­chan­dise. We’re close to our busi­ness and deal with the good and the bad. My dad taught me that.

“We often get asked to open a women’s store, but our strat­egy re­mains to be the best at what we do,” he said. “Just be­cause we are in Canada doesn’t mean we can’t be the best.”

In 1968, Harry Rosen opens second store in Yorkdale mall, becoming a multi-store operator.

Timeline: Harry Rosen