Upscale French fashion brand Sandro has opened its first freestanding Canadian store at Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre, with more Canadian locations planned. The Yorkdale Sandro is in the mall’s new $331 million, 300,000 square foot Nordstrom-anchored expansion wing which opened last month.

The 2,000 square foot Yorkdale Sandro store features modern, contemporary-priced fashions for men and women. Its interior is modern, bright and simple, and boasts a strategic, high-profile corner location in the mall’s newest expansion wing. Sandro is diagonally across from the world’s first Canada Goose store, and shares corner frontages with Canadian retailers Lululemon and Maison Birks. Nordstrom’s new 199,000 square foot Yorkdale store is also located steps away, with an entrance between Canada Goose and Maison Birks.

*(Click above for interactive Yorkdale mall map)*

Sandro launched in Paris in 1984, and is known for focusing on "sleek, chic and effortlessly cool womenswear and menswear”. There are over 500 Sandro stores worldwide. Parent company SMCP (which stands for Sandro, Maje, Claudie Perlot) operates 1176 points of sale globally in 35 countries, with about 4,300 staff.

Sister-label Maje, dedicated to women's fashions, opened its first Canadian store last month in Yorkdale's new 'Nordstrom Wing, two doors from the new Sandro'. Maje, founded in Paris in 1998 and with over 400 locations worldwide, is known for "bohemian-chic, solar, and more feminine womenswear collections", according to SMCP.

Sources at Sandro confirm that the brand will continue opening freestanding Canadian locations, with possibly as many as five stores for each of its Sandro and Maje nameplates. Vancouver is a noted target market for the brand as it continues to seek out real estate opportunities nationally.

*(Maje at Yorkdale on Tuesday, November 15, 2016)*

Sandro and Maje also operate concessions within several of Hudson’s Bay's top-selling stores. Sandro operates women’s concessions at Hudson’s Bay in downtown Vancouver, Montreal and in Toronto at Hudson’s Bay’s Queen Street, Yorkdale and CF Sherway Gardens locations. Sandro Men’s concessions are contained within Hudson’s Bay’s downtown Vancouver and Toronto Queen Street stores. Maje womenswear concessions are located within Hudson’s Bay’s downtown Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto Queen Street and Yorkdale stores.

Toronto's Yorkdale Shopping Centre is Canada's top-performing mall in terms of sales per square foot. New details will be revealed in an upcoming Retail Council of Canada study, which will rank malls on metrics including productivity, size, and pedestrian counts.

Canadian Retail News From Around The Web: November 16, 2016