A routine CEO meeting with the press goes something like this:

The executive arrives, flanked by an entourage that includes media handlers, assistants and a consigliore. Sometimes, but not always, the entourage fades into the background while interviews are conducted.

The CEO has been coached on the message he or she is to deliver. The time frame is often as short as 10 minutes — long enough for the CEO to get his or her message out, but not long enough that they get bored and start answering questions forthrightly.

Imagine the surprise of meeting Peter Simons, the fifth-generation CEO of his family’s Quebec apparel chain, which is expanding across Canada and into the GTA at Square One in March.

Over the course of a three-hour interview sans entourage, Simons lends me his access pass to retrieve my phone from another floor, drives us from Old Quebec to a suburban Simons store in his wife’s SUV (his second-hand Toyota RAV 4 with 200,000 clicks on it is in the shop — “I’m not a car guy,” he says) and answers questions in a searching, thoughtful, sometimes woolly way, touching on subjects like hubris, the importance of beauty in public spaces and flyfishing.

On the subject of the family business, Simons, 51 says, “My father could have sold, my grandfather could have sold, my great-grandfather could have sold — they would have had a really nice life,” as he sits in the plain office above the first store, on Côte-de-la-Fabrique in Quebec City.

His brother, Richard, is vice-president of merchandising. “My brother and I had a really nice life — we used to go flyfishing together. Then we got this crazy dream to build this home-grown family business from coast to coast, and we thought we could do it better and in a more meaningful way than anyone else. That’s when all hell broke loose.”

Simons is in charge of a growing empire of stores — nine in Quebec, including three in Quebec City and one each in Montreal, Anjou, Laval, St. Bruno, Sherbrooke and Gatineau, as well as Edmonton and West Vancouver.

The 110,000-square-foot Simons store opening at Square One on March 17th will be the family’s 12th, and their first in Ontario. A store in Ottawa is scheduled to open in August. Four other stores are in development.

Brian Winston, principal, Winston Collective, and a leading expert in luxury retailing in Canada, says Simons does a great job of blending high fashion with what people will wear. “The Edmonton store is doing exceedingly well for them and that was a big risk.” He says Simons has to grow to take advantage of efficiencies of scale and volume to compete effectively.

The range of products Simons sells, and its prices, will put them into play against everyone from Zara to Nordstrom, Hudson’s Bay, Saks Fifth Avenue, La Vie en Rose and Victoria’s Secret.

Despite competitive pricing on a swath of products, Simons is emphatically not in the lowest-price game.

“We’re going to build a world-class company in Canada,” says Simons. “We’re going to try to make some really good long-term choices. The world can’t have boiled down to everyone just wanting the lowest price at Wal-Mart. I am sensing a much more responsible-consumption purchasing pattern developing. People are finding a new equilibrium between quality and value, and it’s just not disposable fashion and I think we’re really well-positioned to do that.”

The stores have a robust system for reporting back comments and suggestions from customers. Simons himself gets 20 letters a week; he replies to most of them.

Three years ago Simons made an expensive decision to raise wages for everyone in the company, across the board.

“Some people have this fundamental pleasure and desire to serve others and others don’t,” says Simons. “Some people see it as degrading, let’s be honest. I don’t. And I’m looking for people who don’t.”

The result? Low staff turnover.

“This was my first job,” says Jeanne Morain, a Simons employee of more than 45 years. “Working here is extraordinary.”

Same-store-sales growth is strong, the new stores are doing well, annual sales are about $400 million, says Simons.

There have been mistakes — including the expense of the West Edmonton Mall store, their first outside Quebec. “I think we went overboard with the architecture in that store,” says Simons.

“There’s moments, probably, if we had been a public company, I would have lost my job. The last five years have been very demanding on companies. But these moves in retail have to be made not just thinking about the next quarter – these are thing that will take fruit five years from now. The average CEO lasts five to seven years. We have spent the last five years making investments in a way that we think makes sense for five-10-20 years.”

Family businesses are notoriously difficult to maintain through multiple generations, giving rise to the proverb: From shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations. Simons is aware of the proverb and the peril.

“A constant theme in our business is humility. The problem is controlling yourself on the way up. It’s human. It’s at the root of tragedy,” he says.

Simons skis, lives on Īle d’Orléans with his family, vacations deep in the woods at a rough-hewn family fishing camp near La Tuque — getting offline is the new luxury. He is aware of fashion, but not ruled by it. He wears a skinny tie and a Masters of Sweden suit. Nothing flashy.

He is courteous driver, observing speed limits, ceding to others. “I try to teach my kids — you hold the door for someone and you don’t cut someone off in traffic. It does a lot to make the city a more civilized space,” he says.

As we pull into the Place Sainte-Foy shopping centre, home to a recently renovated Simons, he says he’s not too worried about the Zara next door. “I like Zara being here. You can’t avoid the fight. You have to get into the ring,” he says.

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“In the end it all, comes back though to: do people want to have a community where there’s responsible businesses working in it — do they care? That’s the question. I can’t answer that for people. But that’s the kind of business we want to build and we’ll take our chances.

“I’m not here for the next quarter. We’re trying to be here for 200 years.

“I guess I am gambling people will appreciate the values part of what makes us unique.”

Translating Simons

How do you pronounce Simons?

For generations, Simons was an insider secret. Quebec men and women knew where to go for fashion at almost any price point, and that place was Simons, which for more than a century only had stores in the provincial capital. It was considered worth the drive.

In the province of Quebec, Simons enjoys 100 per cent brand awareness. In Quebec City, where Simons was founded by Scottish immigrant John Simons in 1840 as a dry goods store, residents speak of the store and the family with a kind of low-grade fervour.

Simons, says Gisèle Grandbois, a resident of the Old Port in Quebec City, is one of the few English words in Quebec that continues to be pronounced in English, as SYE-munz, not see-MON, as if it were a French name.

No two Simons stores are alike, says Peter Simons. Each one is inspired by the unique location it occupies in a city. Simons commissions works by local and Canadian artists — among them Douglas Coupland — to adorn its stores.

The Square One store will include a sculpture by ceramic artist Brendan Tang, a floating staircase and a 30-foot illuminated wall, suspended from the ceiling. A store in Calgary and another in Edmonton are planned in 2017. Simons is also considering a store at Scarborough Town Centre in 2018 and one at Yorkdale in 2019.

How big is the company? Simons employs more than 2,000 people, including an in-house design team.

What’s its style? Simons carries local, international and luxury designer brands, but its real focus is its own private labels, designed in Quebec, interpreting current fashion worldwide with a French sensibility and flair.

What does it have for men? Simons’ idea is to give customers the pieces they need to create their own looks, including a robust selection of menswear under the private labels Djab and Le 31, and in a daring setting – the stores in Edmonton and Anjou featured construction-site porta potties as changerooms.

And for women? The private-label Simons brands for women include Twik, Icône and Contemporaine, covering all age groups and lifestyles; Miiyu for lingerie and iFive for activewear.

What about for the home? Simons also sells unique housewares – blankets, pillows, linens and tableware.

Does it do e-commerce: Simons invested early in e-online shopping and the website is nimble. On Black Friday online business was so strong, Simons went to bed thinking: Please, Lord, let’s just sell a little less tonight. They ended up with half a million pieces to be shipped. Simons gathered everyone up from the office, designers and secretaries alike. “Forget your job, we’re all going down to pack,” he told them.

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