Taiwanese Fashion Brand to Open 1st Canadian Store this Spring

(Photo: Douchanglee) 

By Craig Patterson 

Taiwanese fashion brand DOUCHANGLEE will open its first Canadian location at West Vancouver’s Park Royal in March of this year. If all goes well, it could be the first of multiple Canadian stores.

DOUCHANGLEE currently operates several stores throughout Taiwan (5 boutiques, 9 department store ‘corners’ and 4 franchises), and will soon open in Paris, France. Canada is also part of the company’s international growth plan that is launching this year. 

Canadian licensee Jack Wang explained how he wanted to bring DOUCHANGLEE to Canada after encouragement from his wife, who is a fan of the brand. He said that she found it challenging to find clothing from other brands in the Lower Mainland with a similar fit, quality and styling, prompting the entrepreneur to strike a deal with Taiwan’s DOUCHANGLEE to enter the Canadian market. 

(Click for interactive Park Royal Mall map) 

(Photo: Douchanglee) 

It helped that Mr. Wang and his family are friends with DOUCHANGLEE’s husband-wife design team, Dou Teng-huang and Zhang Li Yu-jing, who started the brand in 1995 (the name DOUCHANGLEE is a modified combination of their names). The designers graduated from the Department of Fashion Design at Taipei Shijiazhuang University in 1991 and during their studies, they won the first prize of the "4th ROC Fashion Design Newcomer Award" for Taiwan's design industry. Plenty of other design awards followed. 

DOUCHANGLEE designs women’s and men’s collections, and the Park Royal store will initially focus on womenswear. Prices are in the ‘contemporary’ price-point, along the same lines as Michael Kors and Kate Spade. The Park Royal store will span about 2,450 square feet on the ground level of Park Royal South, next to the recently relocated H&M. 

(Photo: Douchanglee) 

(The designers and models at a runway show. Photo: Douchanglee)

Mr. Wang says that the Park Royal store could be the first of multiple locations for DOUCHANGLEE in Canada, though no other stores are currently in the works. The West Vancouver store will act as a test for future Canadian stores if the brand takes off, and he says he’s confident that locals will come to value the Taiwanese brand’s design and overall value proposition. 

Craig Patterson, now based in Toronto, is the founder and Editor-in-Chief Retail Insider. He's also a retail and real estate consultant, retail tour guide and public speaker. 

Follow him on Twitter @RetailInsider_, LinkedIn at Craig Patterson, or email him at: craig@retail-insider.com.

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