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Friday, March 29, 2024

Canada’s Flower Town

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Brampton is a suburban city in the Greater Toronto Area and it earned the aforementioned tag because of its large industry of greenhouses, those transparent structures usually made of glass, in which plants requiring regulated climate conditions are grown.  

It all started when an immigrant from England, Edward Dale, established a flower nursery, Dale’s Nursery, which eventually became the town’s biggest and most successful employer.  It had a thriving business exporting flowers around the globe, and it became so prominent and well respected, it even developed a flower grading system.  At the peak of its popularity, the company had 140 greenhouses, and was the largest in North America, producing an average of 20 million blooms yearly.   

Dale’s Nursery also produced its own rose and orchid varieties, as demanded by the market, and its success gave encouragement to other investors to put up many other flower nurseries in town.  

Starting in 1963, the town put up a highly successful Flower Festival annually, putting it in the consciousness of flower aficionados all over Ontario province and the rest of the country, eventually tagging the town as The Flower Town of Canada.  Living up to its tag, anywhere you go in the city, you’ll find attractive blooms aplenty. 

Attractive blooms are a dime-a-dozen in downtown Brampton, Ontario, Canada

But Brampton is not known only for its flowers.  It is also where you find the headquarters of Loblaw Companies Limited, which operates a large supermarket chain with over 2000 outlets all over Canada, most of which were rebranded as Real Canadian Superstore.

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Ten years ago, designer Joe Mimram put up his fashion creations in some of these supermarket locations.  

Inspired by the thousand-and-one color combinations of the attractive flowers the city is known for, his designs became an instant hit, so this encouraged Loblaw Companies Limited to make them available in almost all of its outlets, including in some stand-alone locations.  The designs were now labeled as Joe Fresh, probably alluding to the fresh produce found in supermarkets.  Its unprecedented success has made it possible for this fashion brand to open its own retail stores, 

Canadian apparel brand Joe Fresh offers products that cater to the young set of stylish consumers

It is currently promoted as stylish and affordable apparel and accessories that include adult and children’s wear, handbags, beauty products, jewelry, beauty products, shoes, and bath items. The brand has already tapped the American market with its flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York City and other retail outlets in other parts of the US East Coast.

Not too long ago, Joe Fresh, with its colors of a thousand flowers, opened its first outlet here in the Philippines, at the Shangri-La Plaza Mall, another pioneering establishment operated by Anton Huang’s Stores Specialists Inc. Preceded by a fashion show featuring the town’s young ramp models, the well-attended launch, as expected, was as colorful as the flowers from the brand’s origin city.

The author with (from left) SSI Marketing Communications Manager Malu Francisco, SM Hotels and Conventions Senior Vice President Peggy Angeles and businessman Raffy Camus

 

The activity center of the mall was peppered with stylish millennials in their attractive get-up, good-looking figures sashaying on a long ramp, and a whole wall of freshly cut flowers serving as a solid backdrop to the show.  With these colors, the venue looked like one big flower show, reminiscent of Brampton’s Flower Festivals.

Now, who would have thought that flower gardens could lead to an entirely new fashion generation, and a booming business at that?  Flowers, anyone?

For feedback, I’m at 

bobzozobrado@gmail.com

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