Retail fashion store F21 Red opens its new location tomorrow (Saturday, Jan. 21) at Highstreet shopping centre.
The store is the first F21 Red in western Canada.
The first 200 people tomorrow at 10 a.m. receive a $21 gift card for the store.
F21 Red – a less expensive spinoff brand of the Los Angeles-based fashion giant Forever 21 – began opening stores in Canada in fall 2015, starting with Ottawa and Windsor, Ontario.
Its plan is to expand the F21 Red sub-banner to between 20 and 30 locations over the next five years.
The company sells clothing, accessories, and beauty products for women, men and girls.
The Highstreet location will encompass 15,000 square feet.
“We’re excited that Forever 21 has chosen Highstreet for its first Western Canadian F21 Red location,” said Darren Kwiatkowski, executive vice-president of Shape Properties, the developer of Highstreet.
“F21 Red’s decision to locate at Highstreet is directly correlated to Highstreet’s fresh new format, which provides customers with an extraordinary open-air retail, dining and entertainment experience.”
Kwiatkowski said the F21 Red opening is consistent with the direction that many of today’s leading retailers are taking away from traditional, suburban-style enclosed malls.
Instead, he said the focus has shifted to dynamic “lifestyle centres” that provide a range of dining, entertainment and fashion choices in an outdoor street-front setting or a hybrid indoor/outdoor experience.
“The successes of innovative, international brands at Highstreet, like H&M and Sephora, helped to secure F21 Red and have contributed to an increase in customer traffic of over 20 per cent in 2015. As a result, we anticipate a number of exciting new leasing announcements in the coming year,” Kwiatkowski said.
