Well before the explosion of quiet luxury and #Corpcore on TikTok, Aritzia was an obscure Canadian retailer specialising in easy-to-style trousers and blazers for those in the know.

The company has consistently expanded since launching in Vancouver 40 years ago, but it wasn’t until after the pandemic that its growth shifted into hyperdrive. Of course, a fashion cycle favouring minimalist wardrobe staples — Ariztia’s bread-and-butter — helped fuel that acceleration. But it was chief executive Jennifer Wong’s comprehensive retail strategy and career development programmes for employees that propelled the retailer to be on track to triple sales from fiscal 2021, becoming a bona fide powerhouse in the North American retail landscape.

Walk into any of Aritzia’s 124 locations and fans will say there’s just something about shopping at Aritzia that makes it irresistible. Wong is tight-lipped on the exact formula, but alludes to the importance of customer service, premium real estate and managing a tight product strategy.

BoF: What’s the role of retail at Aritzia?

Jennifer Wong: This is our 40th year in business, and we started out as a traditional retailer. If it could be in our blood, I feel like it’s in our blood.

Retailing today is a lot different than it was in 1984 when we opened our first store, but many things have stayed the same. Clients still want exceptional experiences. They want interesting and beautiful products that they can wear, that they can trust.

The biggest change has been the store format. It went from roughly 1,500 square feet to around 10,000 square feet on average today, and we’re looking forward to opening stores in the New York area that are even bigger than that. This creates a whole different dynamic, including being able to have cafes, and food and beverage.

BoF: How is Aritzia able to ensure a high level of customer service in its stores?

JW: We have a world-class training programme. We believe in servicing so it’s not just about selling. It’s about making sure that we make a connection with the customer, and understand what it is they’re looking for, and being able to showcase and offer whatever occasion they’re shopping for, whatever their style preferences are.

The first thing to do is to connect and get a read. Once we’re able to determine what the client is looking for, it starts off a relationship where the client then sees how beneficial it is to work with a style advisor. At the same time, if you get the ‘I’m just browsing’ response, I think that’s obviously the cue, and thankfully, our style advisors are ‘people’ people. We really believe in a personalised relationship and so when you walk into our stores, it is highly personalised in that we are inspired by the luxury brands. Many of our style advisors have literal relationships with the client where the client comes back time and time again, seeking out the style advisor because they’ve established a relationship.

BoF: How does Aritzia approach visual merchandising and the power of in-store display?

JW: It’s about presenting our product in any given season in a way that we think is appealing to the customer walking in. We have client favourites interspersed among new items that we’re introducing for the season, and I think the combination of the two inspires the client. We style the mannequins in a way to show different ways of wearing a single item. We can visually display on a mannequin many different ways to style a blazer, so it’s dressed up a little bit or literally with a baseball cap.

BoF: What are other colourful components that go into crafting an in-store experience that people wouldn’t necessarily think of?

JW: The biggest differentiator for us is our locations. We position our stores in the best locations that we can possibly secure, whether it’s SoHo, whether it’s Fifth Avenue, whether it’s the triple-A shopping centres we’re in, and it’s not just the shopping centres themselves. It’s the actual location in those shopping centres.

Our stores are our number one marketing vehicle, making sure we are where the foot traffic is, and where the eyeballs are. That’s probably one of the biggest differentiators, but once you’re in the store, it’s the people. We have amazing people that love what they do.

That’s probably one of the biggest differentiators, but once you’re in the store, it’s the people. We have amazing people that love what they do.

At the end of the day, there’s an energy when you walk in, and that energy is created by the humans in the store. We have a tremendous team. Fifteen percent of our people have been with us for 10 years or longer.

BoF: Can you talk a little bit about the sales associate recruitment and retention process? You famously began your career as a style advisor, and you ended up where you are today.

JW: Yes, I’m the perfect example of someone who started as a part-time style advisor, thought I’d go into banking and finance when I graduated from university, and here I am 37 years later as the CEO and very proud of my career here.

When I’m asked, why have you stayed at Aritzia for so long, there are three things. The first is, I’ve never had to go anywhere else for a career opportunity. Being at Aritzia where we’re growing and we’re doing new things, there are tonnes of opportunities. The second piece is I really do truly love the people I work with. They are exceptionally smart people that are intellectually stimulating when I come to work. They make me better. They keep the bar high. Then the third piece is it is very rewarding to be associated with a successful brand. It’s rewarding to have a clear perspective personally, and when you’re performing well, it’s rewarding financially, too.

One of the things that we do is we attract amazing talent, people who are passionate about fashion, love working with our clients, strive for excellence, and share the same values for creativity. At the same time, we also really believe in promoting from within. You can have a career track here in many different ways. Creative product track, operations track, sales track, management track. There’s a clear track that you can embark on, and once you’re in, we like to think that that is the beginning of the pipeline for our talent and our leadership.

BoF: Would you say that that’s the biggest benefit of cultivating retention and employee loyalty?

JW: During Covid, we did not lay off or furlough a single employee due to Covid-19. At times, it was very stressful [around] how we were going to take care of our people and take care of our business, but we were able to do both. We continued to pay our people, every single one of them, during the pandemic while our stores were closed. What that allowed us to do was, when stores reopened, we had people already trained, ready to go and hitting the ground running. Coming out of Covid, retail got busy. There was a pent-up demand. So we weren’t scrabbling, trying to hire people during a tight labour market.

BoF: What are Aritzia’s retail expansion ambitions?

JW: Right now, we’re focused on the US. That’s where growth is coming from. We open 10 to 12 stores a year, and then I would say four to five repositions a year. That means we might have an existing store that we can possibly reposition in that same location or expand in terms of square footage. We’re opening in new markets. We’re opening more stores in existing markets. We have 57 stores in the US now and we think that we can have close to 150 stores.

BoF: What do you think has been at the heart of Aritzia’s meteoric growth over the past couple of years?

JW: Our product, our product innovation and our ability to get it right. Then there’s the store experience: the beautiful store design, the music we play, the cafes we have, the customer service we offer. It’s the premier real estate locations that we have our stores in, and then it is the people we have in every single area of the business.

It’s technology, it’s operations acumen, it’s our people practices in terms of recruitment and retention. It’s all of the support infrastructure, people, process and technology that we’ve been able to evolve as we’ve grown, but also made sure that we invested in the infrastructure.

All those things are what differentiates Aritzia, and it’s not any one of those things, but it’s all of these things that come together and how we’ve been able to execute well over the years on all of it. When I say we want to be excellent at everything, that’s really what’s in our minds. It’s our mindset.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

This article first appeared in The State of Fashion 2025, an in-depth report on the global fashion industry, co-published by BoF and McKinsey & Company.