Ssense opens new Montreal flagship

Canadian-based luxury fashion e-commerce company Ssense has unveiled a brand new Montreal flagship store. Located at 418 rue Saint Sulpice and designed by world-renowned David Chipperfield Architects, the building will officially open to the public on May 3.

Dubbed 'Ssense Montreal', the 13,000-square-foot store embraces a fresh retail concept that embodies its online counterpart, ssense.com, as well as pays homage to its home city.

"Ssense Montreal is the physical manifestation of everything we stand for at Ssense. It is backed by 15 years of insights gathered on both ssense.com and our previous retail location and I am confident we have established a blueprint for retail in the future," said Rami Atallah, co-founder and chief executive officer of Ssense, in a news statement.

Designed to provide a seamless interface from online to offline, the fresh retail concept offers an appointment-based personal shopping model where customers can make an appointment either online or through the Ssense Montréal stylist app, and have access to over 20,000 products available on ssense.com within 24 hours.

"E-commerce enables scale but is suboptimal in important ways, especially fostering human connection. A seamless integration with physical spaces fills the gaps in the customer experience.”

The five-storey building features two levels and eight spacious fitting rooms dedicated to hosting personal shopping appointments. Meanwhile, on the store’s top floor, a cafe and book store is housed.

The space is directly adjacent to the city's iconic Notre-Dame basilica and was designed to conserve its historic 19th century architecture. Inside, the concrete architecture is transparently expressed and explicitly exposed.

The new location was inaugurated last week at an invite-only event with a live performance commissioned by Prada and Ssense, and directed by both Arca and Carlos Sáez. The aftermath of the inaugural project, Arca/Tormenta, will remain as a public installation, on view through June 3.

An exclusive four-piece Prada capsule collection, in collaboration with Arca, will also be available at Ssense Montreal and online.

The company expects to launch more original projects with the likes of Virgil Abloh, Moncler, Wales Bonner, DIS, Berlin Community Radio, Heron Preston, Kwaidan Editions, Vejas Kruszewski, and Amnesia Scanner.

Last month, the company made headlines with the acquisition of social-commerce website, Polyvore, which left some Polyvore users unpleased.

Founded in 2003, Montreal-based Ssense carries a mix of luxury, streetwear, and avant-garde labels like Off-White, Levi’s and Vetements.

It currently serves 114 countries, generates an average of 53 million monthly page views, and has achieved high double-digit annual growth since its inception.

Ssense opens new Montreal flagship

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