Sometimes it takes a few decades to really hit your stride.
That appears to be the case with Canadian fashion retailer Aritzia, which has experienced considerable success in recent years.
But 2025 has been something else entirely.
Over the past 12 months, the brand — and its stock price — have kicked into overdrive as the company accelerated its physical and digital expansion.
Aritzia’s share price has more than doubled over the past year, even after taking a hit in the early days of President Donald Trump’s trade war. In October, the company reported a 32% year-over-year increase in total quarterly sales, with comparable sales growth exceeding 21%. In the US segment, revenues increased nearly 41% for the quarter.
“Aritzia is a strong and growing brand with ample expansion opportunity in the US,” Jefferies retail analyst Corey Tarlowe said in an October note. “Also, we see margins heading higher over time as the company continues to grow and scale.”
Aritzia’s next earnings report is scheduled for January 8, and the company declined to comment for this story, citing the pre-earnings quiet period.
Behind those headline numbers, the company is by all accounts getting a lot of important things right under CEO Jennifer Wong, who has been in the role since 2022.
For starters, people love the clothes.
Business Insider reporter Jordan Hart discovered this for herself when she went to check out Aritzia’s hyper-viral Super Puff coat — and ended up buying one for herself.
Available in a wide range of options, the coat has been a cold-weather pick for celebrities like Meghan Markle, Olivia Rodrigo, Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, and Lupita Nyong’o.
And in the age of tightening return-to-office mandates, Aritizia’s mainstay Effortless Pants have established a quasi cultlike following among young professionals.
The brand was a hit online surrounding Black Friday, with Google search interest spiking that week and social mentions increasing by 8,100% on TikTok and Instagram, according to intelligence platform PeakMetrics.
The company also launched its first mobile app ahead of the holiday shopping season and immediately topped Apple’s shopping Apps rankings. Although it is still working through some early bugs, App Store reviewers have been effusive in their praise of the app’s features, such as a “closet” of past purchases.
Chief digital officer Margot Johnson told fashion outlet Glossy in December that the app is meant to mirror Aritzia’s legendary boutique shopping experience and provide the company with a steady stream of data to help it better understand where to focus its efforts.
“Fashion is guided by art and shaped by data, and the app brings those together in a beautiful way,” she told the outlet.
Offline, the company is opening stores at a steady clip with a dozen new boutiques in the space of a year and a sharp eye toward premium storefronts. Looking ahead, Aritzia said in November it intends to open a 40,000 square-foot flagship store in a former Vancouver Nordstrom location in 2027.
Founder and executive chair Brian Hill revealed the importance of Aritzia’s real estate strategy in supporting the company’s success. In short, finding top-tier locations with interesting architectural details is worth the extra trouble and expense if it helps drive sales.
“If you don’t have a beautiful store and you’re not inspiring the client, you’re not going to have a busy store,” he said at a December conference, Real Estate News Exchange reported. “It’s really about the balance between form and function.”
Over the longer term, Aritzia is betting big on its US expansion, with CEO Wong projecting that the US store count could nearly triple from its current 68 locations.
And while the company has a target of 18 months to break even on a new store’s opening costs, Wong said during the October earnings call that this year’s US locations were reaching that metric in less than a year.
At the end of the day, however, Wong said the apps, real estate, and other marketing strategies are simply there to support one thing.
“Ultimately, our business is driven by product,” she said. “The reason why our business is so good is because we have what the customer wants.”
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