Origins
With a small assortment of caps and hats, William S. Henderson of Derry, Ireland, arrived in Quebec City in 1834. He joined the retailing firm of Ashton and Company in 1835. After buying controlling interest in 1837, he renamed the company after himself, and opened a store on rue Buade.
In 1849, Henderson started selling furs, and three years later, sold the shop to his brother, John Henderson. In 1860, George Richard Renfrew, who had been an employee, bought a partnership, and the firm became Henderson, Renfrew & Co. In 1867, John Holt bought out Henderson's remaining interest, and the company eventually was renamed Holt Renfrew & Co. Ltd. in 1908.
The company built a reputation for furs that was solidified in 1886 when the firm had the honour of being appointed "Furrier-in-Ordinary to her Majesty" by Queen Victoria. The company eventually received five generations of Royal Warrant.
The company expanded to Montreal, and in 1889 it extended into Ontario with the opening of a Toronto store. Stores followed in Winnipeg in 1910, Ottawa in 1942, Hamilton in 1945, Edmonton in 1950, and Calgary and London in 1953. The chain also opened outlets in some of the country's most notable hotels, including the Royal York, the Château Frontenac, and the Château Laurier. Holt Renfrew's expansion across the country continued in the next two decades, with locations opening in Toronto's Yorkdale Shopping Centre in 1964, Ste-Foy in 1965 and Vancouver in 1975.
In the 1930s, the company began entering into exclusive accounts with some of the best designers in Europe and the United States to sell their fashions in Canada, as well as hosting Canadian couturiers such as Marie-Paule Nolin. In 1947, Holt Renfrew began a relationship with Christian Dior that continues to this day. Many well-known upscale designers have since been added.
Read more about this topic: Holt Renfrew
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)