(PHOTO TAKEN MAY 30, 2017 BY CRAIG PATTERSON)
Musical performer Drake’s retail concept October’s Very Own (OVO) will open this summer at Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre. It will be only the fourth location for the brand globally, as well as the second in Toronto and the first to be located in a major shopping centre.
*Update from August 2, 2017: Drake has announced that this store will open Saturday, August 5. According to a press release, it will feature “luxury apparel, capsule collections and exclusive drops from OVO.” The store opens in time for his OVO Fest, also happening the August long weekend (coinciding with Caribana Toronto).
A must watch, see video below: Cadillac Escalade and crew rolls through Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre while Drake performs “Gyalchester” — instantly turning Yorkdale it into an international tourist attraction.
OVO’s first location opened in December of 2014 at 899 Dundas Street West in Toronto. The small boutique was the brainchild of OVO’s co-founder Oliver El-Khatib, and it followed a summer of 2014 pop-up that was held in the same retail space.
In December of 2015, OVO opened its second store location at 130 N. La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles, spanning about 2,400 square feet. In December of 2016, OVO’s third store location opened at 54 Bond Street in New York City. All three of Drake’s stores feature simple white interiors, and carry a range of exclusive OVO-branded products as well as some designer collaboration pieces.
According to construction signage that went up this week, Yorkdale’s OVO store will be opening this summer in a retail space between Strellson and Oak + Fort. Mall lease plans indicate that unit CRU-521 has more than 1,600 square feet of space. The new store will be located in Yorkdale’s new 300,000 square foot Nordstrom-anchored expansion wing that opened in October of 2016.
(inside the new NYC ovo flagship. photo: ovo)
Drake, who’s actual name is Aubrey Drake Graham, is known to collaborate with various designers for limited edition product roll-outs. We might expect the Yorkdale store to see lineups for new and exclusive product releases when the store opens this summer.
Toronto is a focal point for Drake’s music, and in April of 2016 he released his award winning fourth studio album ‘Views‘, which included a photoshopped image of Drake sitting on the edge of the CN Tower. Drake has had a number of hits (‘Hotline Bling‘ was a 2015 favourite), and the performer will maintain a Toronto residential presence with the completion of his under-construction 40,000 square foot mansion in the wealthy ‘Bridle Path‘ area — about a 20 minute drive from Yorkdale.
(Aubrey Drake Graham, aka ‘drake’)
(‘views’ album cover)
OVO will provide an extra element of interest for Yorkdale, which is already one of the most dynamic shopping centres in North America. Yorkdale recently unveiled its permanent multi-retailer pop-up space called CONCEPT, and a number of other exciting first-to-market retailers will be announced for the mall in the coming months. Yorkdale, which was ranked Canada’s most productive shopping centre in terms of sales per square foot by Retail Council of Canada’s Shopping Centre Study, will see a westward expansion wing open this fall, anchored by RH/Restoration Hardware and Sporting Life. Upon completion of the new wing, Yorkdale will become the country’s second largest mall in terms of size, with only West Edmonton Mall being larger.
