Storefront at 829 Queen St. West on SAturday, July 14. Photo: ACT7/Urban Toronto

By Craig Patterson

Korean beauty company VDL will open its first North American store this summer on Toronto’s trendy ‘West Queen West’. This month, the company is also launching wholesale distribution for 200 of its products in several ‘The Face Shop’ and ‘Nature Collection’ locations in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia.

VDL’s expensive product offerings include makeup (face, lip, eyes, cheeks), nail, skin care (including masks and men’s offerings), cleansing, body & hair and related beauty ‘tools’ such as foundation brushes. The line, which stands for “Violet Dream Luminous”, was founded in 2012 and it has stores in Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines, China, Hong Kong, as well as wholesale distribution in various global markets.

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Prices for VDL products are considered to be ‘moderate’ — they’re generally lower than luxury brands found in department stores, but higher than some value-priced drugstore brands, as well as brands like Deciem that are competing on both quality and price.

VDL will open this month at 829 Queen Street West, in a retail space that previously housed a pop-up location for US eyewear retailer Illesteva. The ‘West Queen West’ area was named by Vogue Magazine in 2014 as being the world’s ‘second coolest neighborhood'.

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As part of VDL’s launch into Canada, the brand is also now being carried at the following ‘The Face Shop’ and ‘Nature Collection’ locations:

Ontario:

Alberta:

Manitoba

CF Polo Park

British Columbia:

Quebec: Several Nature Collections stores are said to carry VDL (including at CF Galeries d'Anjou) but we weren't provided a full list by press time.

The stretch of ‘West Queen West’ is becoming something of a beauty destination in Toronto, with several retailers having recently opened in the area. Toronto-based beauty brand Deciem, which is seeing explosive growth internationally, opened its very first standalone store at 881 Queen Street West in the summer of 2016. LVMH-owned Bite Beauty has operated at 678 Queen Street West since the fall of 2016, and two new brands have recently opened nearby — L’Occitane en Provence opened at 692 Queen Street West in the spring, and Toronto-based skincare brand Consonant recently unveiled its flagship store a few doors down from VDL at 819 Queen Street West.

VDL was expected to open its Queen Street West store at the end of June, though a visit last week showed that it was still under construction. We’ll update this article with more information once the Queen Street store opens to the public.

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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