TORONTO — Toronto womenswear designer Hilary MacMillan says it was a “huge moment” in her career to have her clothes featured at The Bay in high-profile collaborations several years ago.
She followed up that in-store presence by selling her wares on the company's now-defunct third-party online marketplace, which was linked through the Bay's website and offered easy access to a new customer base — until it shut down suddenly last year. MacMillan says the company owes her money.
It was a rude awakening to the harsh realities of long-whispered financial troubles and floundering strategic direction at Hudson's Bay, a now very public collapse that observers say was many years in the making as more nimble rivals and shifting consumer patterns eroded the once-venerable retail giant.
MacMillan says she’s sad to see what was once the pinnacle of retail now scrounging for ways to maintain a fraction of its stores.
"The Bay was just like a powerhouse, right?” says MacMillan. She's owed $2,641, according to a list of creditors filed in court on March 11 as part of Hudson's Bay creditor protection process.
“Getting in there ... allowed us to have our collections in many stores across Canada. Exposure to their customers in their market was honestly amazing."
The big question for both Canadian brands and retailers is, what’s left to take the Bay’s place?
Mike Purkis, president of Caulfeild Apparel Group Ltd., says Caulfeild – operating since 1886 – has been doing business with the Bay “for longer than anyone knows, probably 100 years.” Between its brands Joe Boxer Canada and the men's sportswear collection Modern English he says annual orders ran into the millions of dollars.
He had planned to expand that by rolling out a newly acquired men’s upper sportswear brand called Benson at nine Bay stores this fall.
“I guess it's off the table,” he said when reached last week, before the Bay said it would try to save six of its 80 stores, all in the Toronto and Montreal areas.
"I don't know what happens to Canadian retail without the Hudson's Bay. They're a cornerstone to Canadian retail. They're the launch pad for many brands into Canada that do not have a foothold without them.
"We don't have the independent customers we used to have, but the ones that are there are either luxury or they're operating in smaller markets. The Bay serves a huge market."
Purkis says he anticipated the Bay’s troubles would come to a head soon and budgeted revenue from the retailer “at zero” for this year, noting he's also in Costco and various independent shops.
“More important for me is where do I place my brands to ensure that they remain brands, and how do we build our brand identity?” he says.
Luxury outerwear guru Robin Yates, co-founder of Nobis, says he cut ties with the Bay several years ago and that it was because it fell nearly a season behind in payments, a debt he pegged at nearly six figures. He says he did get the money back but it took “some time” to recoup, noting Nobis was able to leverage its position and the Bay’s desire to maintain their relationship.
The list of current creditors runs 26 pages long.
Hudson's Bay spokeswoman Tiffany Bourré said by email that as part of the company's CCAA process, "payments to creditors including vendors are stayed at this time" and that the company was exploring "potential solutions to preserve and restructure its business."
CFO Jennifer Bewley has said in court documents that Hudson’s Bay faces “significant challenges to its ability to make payments” including to vendors and has “had to defer certain payments for many months.”
Yates notes that Nobis was in multiple retailers when it left the Bay.
“At the time we moved away officially, we still had the Nordstrom relationship, which was a powerhouse for us. We continue with Sporting Life, and in our category, that's meaningful business. We've had some success with Harry Rosen and some of those other leaders but really, who's left?” he says.
“There's very little in the way of meaningful retail for that sort of head-to-toe type of product offering. ... Where does the average person go? That points back now, more often than not, to the Costcos and the off-price channels.”
While stores like Winners and HomeSense might be an option for some Canadian vendors, it’s not for Nobis, he says, describing his high-end coats and parkas as “fairly priced” for a “very high cost of goods.”
"You know some brands that have tremendous markups and they can market 50 (per cent) off and still be profitable — we're not in that world at all. That is not a space that would gain us any credibility with the banks."
To a large degree, the Bay’s downfall is not much of a loss to Nobis and similarly priced higher-end brands since they're no longer at the Bay, anyway, he says.
“They lost that customer some time ago.”
Many in Canada’s fashion community can trace some kind of career connection to Hudson’s Bay Company, if not as a vendor who showcased their creations, then as an employee or a customer inspired by what they found there, says fashion professor Rossie Kadiyska of Humber Polytechnic.
She points to valuable internships and entry-level positions that have offered students and alumni crucial on-the-job experience working in copyright, merchandising or making their mark in design.
“We had quite a few students of ours that went to their flagship brands, and they worked as designers, even for their (2010 Vancouver) Olympic line,” she recalls.
Big Canadian womenswear lines of the ‘80s and ‘90s wouldn’t have been possible without support from national retailers like the Bay, says veteran industry watcher Robert Ott who points to Mister Leonard and Nygard as a homegrown rivals to the era’s U.S. giants, Liz Claiborne and Jones New York.
Shoulder-padded blazers and smart button-downs anchored large swaths of department stores back then, recalls Ott, who served as head of Jones New York’s Canadian division at the time.
But he says those days are long gone and he struggles to recall any surviving big Canadian brand of the era, noting the Bay subsequently moved away from favouring older professional female customers to court younger shoppers.
"The department store has not been part of that equation for many, many years, I would say at least 15 or 20 years," says Ott, associate dean of fashion at Toronto Metropolitan University and director of the Suzanne Rogers Fashion Institute.
He says there are opportunities for new retailers to pick up the pieces but the landscape will “look very, very different.”
The Bay's decline comes as Simons touts a new outlet bound for the Toronto Eaton Centre, just down the street from the Bay flagship, but Ott suggested it offers limited opportunities for Bay vendors looking to bounce back.
He suggests that's in part because the Quebec-based retailer leans heavily on their own private label and a distinct point of view, not to mention a more curated array of merchandise than what would be found at the Bay.
Ott also downplays the impact national retailers have in elevating Canadian brands to begin with, partly because so many giants have fallen, adding Le Chateau to the list.
"Canadian consumers have very, very little brand loyalty just because of the upheaval in the last 10 years.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 24, 2025.
Cassandra Szklarski, The Canadian Press
