Aug. 14, 2025 "Simons opens its 1st Toronto store at Yorkdale mall": Today I found this article on CBC:
Wandering through Simons's newest store a day before it opened on Thursday, Bernard Leblanc had a quiet confidence despite the busyness surrounding him.
Across almost every inch of the flagship store at Yorkdale mall in Toronto, staff were scurrying to unwrap and steam the last of the location's merchandise, vacuum carpets and dress mannequins.
The seemingly menial tasks belied the enormity of what they were all preparing for: Simons's entry into the venerable Toronto market.
That feat has been a long time coming.
La Maison Simons is 185 years old
but has taken such a methodical expansion outside its home province of Quebec
that it only counted 17 stores until now.
While it's long wanted to head to Toronto, it somehow detoured through Halifax, West Vancouver and even the city's outskirts in nearby Mississauga, Ont., before forging its way into the heart of Ontario on Thursday.
'A new chapter' for Simons
Leblanc, the CEO of Simons, sees the entry as both a "new chapter" for the company
and proof that "slow and steady wins the race."
"Ultimately, we have owners that don't think in quarters. We think in generations," he said of the Simons family.
They founded the business in Quebec City in 1840 as a dry goods retailer
and charted its evolution into a department store beloved by Canadian fashionistas.
Leblanc is the first non-family member to hold the company's top job and so there's a lot riding on the Toronto expansion.
The retailer will spend a combined $75 million on the Yorkdale store
and another to follow at the Eaton Centre this fall.
Leblanc expects them to increase the company's annual sales by 15 per cent to $650 million.
In some respects, his milestone is coming at a perfect time.
The last eight months saw the fall of Simons's biggest competitor — 355-year-old department store Hudson's Bay
— and a rise in consumer support for Canadian goods amid the tariff war.
Simons house brands, including
Twik,
Icone,
Contemporaine
and Le 31,
make up 70 per cent of its stores' merchandise on average.
While Leblanc is thrilled to see the patriotism having an effect on customers, he's not relishing the collapse of his rival.
"I'm saddened by the fact that such a historical Canadian icon has left the market," he said of Hudson's Bay.
"As a retailer, we like to have a very buoyant and dynamic retail industry, so having somebody exit is always a little bit of a shock to the industry."
History, heritage don't guarantee success
It was also a reminder to Simons that the company has to keep reinventing itself because "history and heritage is not a guarantee of success," he said.
Simons has not publicly emerged as a bidder for any of the Bay leases or intellectual property.
Nor has it "aggressively pursued specific brands that we didn't have because of exits from different people in the industry," Leblanc said.
"We do scout the market globally for
new upcoming brands
and discover brands that people perhaps don't know about,"
he said.
"That's more our focus,
not so much coming in to be opportunistic,
to pick up something that somebody left behind."
But it's something that somebody left behind that helped make his company's Toronto ambitions a reality.
Simons was only able to move into Yorkdale and Eaton Centre because U.S. department store Nordstrom decamped from Canada in 2023, saying it had been too hard to make a profit in the market.
The massive properties Nordstrom held in some of Toronto's top shopping destinations presented the opportunity Simons had long been looking for.
"We had been in discussions with Yorkdale for some time," Leblanc said. "We were here many years ago trying to see what potentially we could put together."
At 118,000 square feet, the new, two-storey Yorkdale location will be the largest space in Simons's Ontario portfolio.
It carries many of the same brands shoppers have come to expect from other markets — Herschel, JW Anderson and Lacoste.
Unique to this location is a sprawling, geometric ceiling mural called Ciel from French artist Nelio that gives the store a fresh, airy feel.
A "walk of frames" composed of 40 pieces from 24 artists brings another reason to linger in many of the store's nooks.
Leblanc is betting the merchandise and store vibe will keep customers coming back and teach his company valuable lessons it can use as it continues to plot future growth.
He named both Toronto and Vancouver as markets that may be able to support even more Simons stores but said for now he's focused on "taking it all in stride."
"I'm really excited about making these two stores a success, starting with Yorkdale," he said. "And then we'll see where things take us."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/simons-department-store-yorkdale-toronto-1.7609569
If you click on this link, you can see the art in the store:
https://www.simons.ca/en/our-stores/art-and-culture/the-walk-of-frames-yorkdale--a46308
Sept. 19, 2025 "What does the expansion of Simons in Canada mean for the department store?": Today I found this article by Christi Dabu on BNN Bloomberg:
The secret to success for Simons has been
“adapting
and changing”
to the needs
and trends
of the marketplace,
says the chief executive officer of the Canadian department store.
“The future is more difficult” for a retailer that doesn’t evolve with the times, no matter how long it has been around, Bernard Leblanc told CTV Your Morning on Thursday. Quebec-based Simons has been operating for 185 years in Canada.
“We take inspiration from all of the fashion scenes from around the world,” Leblanc, the company’s first CEO who is not a member of the founding family, said from the new Simons location at Toronto’s Eaton Centre.
Nordstrom formerly occupied the space before it exited Canada in 2023.
“Our merchant team is always travelling around the world and looking for that new trend that’s up and coming.
We listen to the whispers and we start thinking about how it can be built into the next collections.”
Simons has been expanding in the country in recent months. It has nearly 20 locations across Canada so far. The department store celebrated the opening of its new location at the Eaton Centre in downtown Toronto on Thursday.
About a month ago, Simons opened its first Toronto store at Yorkdale Shopping Centre.
Meanwhile, other retailers are struggling and have even closed their physical stores, including the country’s iconic 355-year-old retailer Hudson’s Bay.
Why is Simons successful in Canada?
Leblanc said Simons has taken a “very cautious approach” to its expansion.
“It has been done with
a lot (of) intent,
a lot of reliance on data,
and on what the customers have been telling us,”
Leblanc told Your Morning.
He called the retailer’s entrance into the Toronto market “a new chapter” and proof that “slow and steady wins the race,” The Canadian Press reported on Aug. 14. The Simons family, which has owned the company for decades, “think in generations” rather than in quarters, he told the news agency.
Simons has its own design team, Leblanc added in the interview with Your Morning on Thursday. He said more than 100 designers work at its headquarters in Quebec City.
Another ingredient to its success?
It curates a “very unique assortment of products,”
Leblanc told Your Morning.
The retailer’s house brands represent about 70 per cent of stores’ merchandise, he said. Simons sells many products that the market has not seen before, he added.
Bruce Winder, a retail expert in Toronto, told CP24 last month that Simons has done “very well” compared to many of its brick-and-mortar competitors.
La Maison Simons was founded as a dry goods retailer in Quebec City in 1840. The company says it is the country’s oldest family-owned business.
Watch the video above for the full interview.
With files from CP24.com’s Codi Wilson and The Canadian Press
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