BRAND PROFILE | Joe Fresh
Joe Fresh was founded in 2006 by creative director Joe Mimram. He has been the one awarded with creating and taking the Superstore Supermarkets born brand into the future.
Born in Casablanca, Morocco in 1952, Mimram was the son of a former couturier and a grocery store owner. His mother, who became a seamstress for Toronto socialites when the whole family moved to Canada, introduced him to the idea of fashion design. Although his world was always surrounded by fashion his beginnings were actually in the art scene. When Mimram was 18 he opened his own art gallery in Toronto while simultaneously working at a clothing store and and in night clubs as a bouncer to be able to afford it. Keeping with the art concept Mimram went on to complete a bachelor of arts from York University and bachelor of commerce from the University of Windsor. Although he aspired to work in a creative field, he initially went in the seemingly opposite direction as an accountant for a multinational company. “The choice was really based on having a business background” Mimram explains. “The minute I had that, I left the profession”.
In 1997, Joe became a partner in Ms. Originals, a small clothing company started by his mother and brother. A couple of years after that they hired Alfred Sung, that move transformed the relatively unknown designer into a household name. In the beginning their main focus mas manufacturing, they had only 6 sewing machines and no employees which meant that everyone did everything. This is where Mimram learned the basics about running a clothing company; he mastered everything from how to fix the machines to how to lay the fabric.
Joe Mimram on the left, and Alfred Sung on the right
The original concept of Club Monaco was born a after the designer was unable to find a plain white cotton shirt
that was of his liking. He decided that since no one else was offering it he was going to create his own, he came up with a line of unisex basics made out of good quality material and great prices that became the foundation of Club Monaco.
In the beginning he had the idea of selling the line to the big department stores with which he had several connections because of his mother’s job as a seamstress and Ms.Originals success. After attempting several times he realized that the concept was simply not getting across the way he intended it to, so with the entire inventory he already had he was forced to open a store. After the brand began to develop, the Ralph Lauren Corporation bought Club Monaco for U$S52 million, making Mimram into a millionaire and a fashion icon instantly. Although Joe carried on as a Chairman, President and CEO, he was fired after sales began to fall a year and a half after the acquisition.
In the time that followed his departure from Club Monaco Mimram opened a brand as well as a design
consulting company and became a part owner and consultant for Pink Tartan, his wife’s high end fashion label.
He also began consulting and developing housewares for the President’s Choice Home Collection brand.
Because of his relationship with them from their PC partnership, Loblaw approached Mimram in 2004 about
creating an adult fashion line to be carried at the holding companies supermarkets; this was to be a development from the already existing children’s line. After studying the competition they decided that an affordable line of clothing with high end design was the best idea.
Mimram noted that both the “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 tear and wear of shopping carts and the traffic flow”.
Joe Fresh - Winter 2013
In March of 2006 Joe Fresh finally opened at 40 different Real Canadian Superstore branches across Canada. Seven months after the debut sales were extremely promising, the brand was enjoying repeat customers and the response had been overwhelmingly positive. Between 2007 and 2009 they expanded into sleepwear, lingerie, children’s wear, swimwear, sunglasses and cosmetics. By then, the brand had become the second
biggest selling clothing label in Canada; according to a Maclean’s magazine article published in 2001, Joe
Fresh appeals to vast array of customers: “Since its inception, Joe Fresh has been a smash hit with suburban soccer moms. But experts have been a little surprised by how many young urbanites, regulars at Holt Renfrew and other high-priced boutiques, are willing to snap up $29 cable-knit sweaters and $49 skirts without the slightest hint of shame. Many, in fact, openly boast to friends about their great finds”.
In 2010 Loblaw opened the first Joe Fresh stand-alone store in downtown Vancouver. A few months later, it was announced that the brand intended to open twenty more stores all across Canada, with six of them to be completed by year’s end. Although the media has initially speculated that the brand would remain strictly a Canadian phenomenon, in 2011, Loblaw announced its most ambitious plans yet for Joe Fresh – four retail outlets located in the metropolitan New York City with “an international flagship store” on Fifth Avenue.
Joe Fresh - Fifth Av, New York
In July 2012, Joe Fresh announced that they had teamed up with J.C Penney and were opening close to 700 Joe stores in the retailer’s outlets throughout the United States. Mimram noted that the move would give Joe Fresh international exposure. In March 2013 681 Joe Fresh stores were launched throughout J.C.Penney locations, and at the same time the brand became available online and was featured on the J.C. Penney website.
On March of this year, after a long and successful nine year stint overseeing the company, Mimran announced his retirement. He passed the reins over to Mario Grauso who was named president last year and went on to consult ocassionally for his wife's high-end brand Pink Tartan.
Mario Grauso and Joe Mimran
Joe Fresh’s success can be attributed, in part, to the idea that the brand was introduced as a store within a store; it wasn’t simply the idea of selling a shirt next to canned food, but the whole concept of creating a high end experience in a non-high-end environment. Joe Fresh stores inside of the Superstores have their own cash desks, changing rooms and even lighting. It is not merchandised as a grocery store and it doesn’t attempt to be one.
* Images courtsey of financialpost.com, fashionista.com, styleblog.ca, fashionwindows.net