Joe Fresh
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|
| Product type | Apparel, footwear, accessories, beauty and cosmetics |
|---|---|
| Owner | Loblaw Companies |
| Country | Canada |
| Introduced | 2006 |
| Markets |
Canada United States |
| Tagline | Fresh style. Fresh price. |
| Website | joefresh.com |
Joe Fresh is a fashion brand and retail chain created by designer Joe Mimran for Canadian food distributor Loblaw Companies Limited. "Joe," as the label is often called, is promoted as stylish and affordable apparel and accessories that include adult and children's wear, shoes, handbags, jewellery, beauty products and bath items. The line is available at over 300 Canadian supermarkets and superstores, in addition to standalone locations.
Joe Fresh had also entered the U.S. market with permanent and pop-up stores in New York City and the surrounding region, with an international flagship store located at 510 Fifth Avenue. In 2012, the brand also appeared in approximately 680 J.C.Penney stores throughout the United States.
The J.C.Penney agreement was dismantled in 2015, with the companies making the decision not to renew their existing distribution agreement which expired on January 30, 2016. The Fifth Avenue store closed in 2015.
In 2004, Loblaw approached Joe Mimran, a co-founder of the Club Monaco retail chain and the name behind the Alfred Sung brand, with the idea of creating a new fashion line. Mimran had previously worked with Loblaw in developing its President's Choice Home Collection of merchandise. While the company had offered children's clothing in its superstores, it had never participated into the adult market. Mimran and Loblaw soon identified a market niche, namely fashionable-but-highly-affordable clothing. "Out of our discussion came the idea of style at an incredible price." Much, though, was left to Mimran's intuitive sense of what would sell:
...we had no idea what the consumer would want from a food store; we had no idea whether the prices would resonate, whether they wanted casual dress versus something dressier. Everything that was done at that time, we did it really without very much research. We just said let's build a line, let's design the stores, the marketing, the [rounded dollar] price points. We went with bright colours and tasty colours because it was a food store, and all of these things were all done intuitively, and it worked.
Mimran noted that both "integrity of product design" and a "killer price point" were key, along with the practical considerations associated with selling a clothing line in a supermarket, since both the retail environment and merchandise "had to stand up to the wear and tear of shopping carts and the traffic flow."
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