Canada is a good place to test your product to enter the North America thanks to its diverse regional markets, unique sense of style and friendly open business culture, according to a group of industry experts at UKFT’s first virtual Canada Round Table in July 2021.

Panellists

• Paul Alger MBE, International Business Director, UKFT
• Mark Boloten and Jan Brabers from Fashionnet.org in Toronto, which work with a large number of international brands in Canada and Canadian brands internationally 
• Marc Psarolis, Black Watch agency in Toronto, representing John Smedley, Sunspel, Loake and Wood Wood in Canada 
• Mathieu St-Arnaud of MMode Québec, an association similar to UKFT based in Québec which aims to bring together players of Québec fashion industry to promote the industry’s know-how and innovative capability 
• Laurence Slavin of SlavinRaphael, an agency and distributor based in Toronto which works with brands
  including Ted Baker, Hunter, New Balance, Tiger of Sweden and Suicoke
• Ricky Green, former global director of wholesale at Ted Baker
• Bill Leach, global sales director at John Smedley. Bill spent 15 years at Adidas and 15 years at Pentland before joining John Smedley six years ago

A document is available outlining the discussion, covering topics including:

• What the market is like at the moment
• Opportunities for UK brands
• How the Canadian market works and dealing with buyers
• Why Ted Baker used Canada to build a much bigger business in the wider North American market
• The perception of UK brands in the market
• The Canadian multichannel market
• The stores to know

The document is available to UKFT members. To access a copy, email info@ukft.org