When Kit and Ace last month opened its second Vancouver location and ninth location in Canada, it demonstrated the 10-year-old company’s resilience, and optimism from new owners at Unity Brands. CEO David Lui told having great locations is key in retail and that his fashion chain is taking its time finding future locations to open stores. He likes the new location at 2233 West 4 Avenue because it is in the heart of a shopping strip with many fashion retailers.
He cancelled plans to open a few stores this year because he decided that the locations were not strong enough, he said. Kit and Ace has had a volatile history. It shot out of the gate with its first store in Gastown in July 2014, and within two years had 61 locations and about 700 employees.
Founders Summer Wilson and JJ Wilson, the wife and son of Lululemon Athletica Inc.(Nasdaq:LULU) founder Chip Wilson, then realized that its revenue could not support such a large global footprint. They incrementally closed all Kit and Ace stores outside of Canada, and in April 2017 laid off staff at the company’s Vancouver headquarters and parted ways with the company’s president, Wendy Bennison.
That left nine Canadian locations, and the chain’s store count continued to fall. By October 2019, when the Wilson family sold a majority stake in the venture to CEO George Tsogas, the chain had six stores. Four other executives bought the company’s remaining shares to allow the Wilson family to completely exit from their investm.
