Founding and early growth

Les Ailes de la Mode was founded in 1993 by Paul Delage Roberge as a division of its San Francisco women clothing chain. The name "Les Ailes de la Mode" was derived from a magazine of the same name that was founded in 1988 by Jean Delage Roberge.

Les Ailes de la Mode opened its first store in 1994 at Mail Champlain in Brossard, Quebec.^[2] At the time, the two-story location featured a pianist who would play throughout the store, a restaurant, a coffee shop named Brulerie-les-Ailes,^[3] and a talking bear in the children's section. The popularity of Les Ailes de la Mode inspired an IMAX theatre which was opening at the same mall in 1996 to call itself Imax Les Ailes.

Les Ailes de la Mode established an image as an upscale department store selling prestigious apparel and cosmetic brands, including Hugo Boss, Versace, G-Star, Dolce & Gabbana, Tommy Hilfiger, Armani, Nautica, Polo Ralph Lauren, DKNY, Diesel, Jones New York, Calvin Klein, Guess, Lancôme, and Chanel.^[4]

In 1996, Les Ailes de la Mode opened a 60,000 square feet (5,600 m²) store at Carrefour Laval, in a space which occupied a Pascal hardware store five years before.

The third Les Ailes de la Mode store opened in 1997 at Place Sainte-Foy in Sainte-Foy, Quebec. As with the Brossard store, it had a ''Brulerie-les-Ailes as well as a Côté Jardin restaurant in the mezzanine.^[5] In this particular store, there was a small play area for kids.^[5]

In 2001, Les Ailes de la Mode opened its fourth store in Bayshore Shopping Centre in Nepean, Ontario.

The long-awaited downtown Montreal flagship store of Les Ailes de la Mode opened on August 7, 2002 in the former space of Eaton's department store which had been converted into a new shopping mall called Complexe Les Ailes and named after Les Ailes de la Mode. Upon its opening, the 223,000-square-foot, four-floor flagship store included a karaoke (where Musique Plus would broadcast its television program Karaoclip ^[6]), an art gallery, a wedding registry service, a shoe waxing service, a vodka bar, many breast-feeding rooms, a carousel and amusements in the children's section as well as many other attractions. The store also featured four restaurants: 1) Kouros Bar, a bar selling exclusively vodka 2) Kouros Tea Room, a tea bar 3) Stto Shushi Bar and 4) Kouros Restaurant, which offered tapas and Mediterranean snacks.^[7] The downtown store employed 1,000 people.^[8]

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Les Ailes de la Mode was at its peak. In 1998, its stock was worth $54 per share. The company had its own foundation, la fondation Les Ailes, which raised funds for the health and education sectors.^[3] It participated in charity events and would annually draw a high-priced house called La maison de rêve Les Ailes. The foundation raised $1,600,000 in 2002 for many established organizations.^[9] Shoe waxing, wedding registering and many other services were offered in Les Ailes de la Mode stores.^[3] During December each year, the stores designate a portion of their floorspace as a Christmas section where children would get to meet Santa Claus in his kingdom.

Decline

Les Ailes de la Mode's problems began in 2003 as a direct result of the openings of the Bayshore and Montreal stores. The company's quick expansion was more than it could afford. The downtown Montreal store was particularly too large for what the market could handle, and it saddled the company with debt that would force it into bankruptcy.^[10]

The Bayshore store was closed down in 2003, less than two years after its opening. In January 2004, the size of the downtown Montreal store was reduced to 76,764 square feet across two floors: roughly a third of its former size. Despite these drastic measures, however, Les Ailes de la Mode never recovered from the troubles initiated by these two stores.

Meanwhile, these troubles began to be reflected across the chain. La fondation Les Ailes and its programs were terminated. Plans to open new stores in Fairview Pointe-Claire, Marché Central and Lac-Mirabel and expand in Toronto, Vancouver and the United States were scrapped.

Les Ailes de la Mode's underperformance drove the entire San Francisco Group into bankruptcy in December 2003. After exiting bankruptcy in July 2004, the San Francisco Group was renamed Groupe Les Ailes de la Mode, with Les Ailes de la Mode being one of its just two remaining divisions (the other being Bikini Village).^[10]

Change of direction

In August 2005, Groupe Les Ailes de la Mode sold Les Ailes de la Mode to Fairweather Group (currently named Fairweather I.N.C Group), ^[11] who heavily modified the concept of Les Ailes de la Mode from an upscale department store to a discount store.

Les Ailes de la Mode magazine ceased publication and was discontinued. Les Ailes de la Mode stopped selling prestigious apparel and cosmetic brands, including Hugo Boss, Versace, G-Star, Dolce & Gabbana, Tommy Hilfiger, Armani, Nautica, Polo Ralph Lauren, DKNY, Diesel, Jones New York, Calvin Klein, Guess, Lancôme, and Chanel.^[4] Instead, Les Ailes de la Mode sold discount merchandise from the various store banners and in-house brands of parent company Fairweather I.N.C Group, including International Concepts, Stockhomme, Pinstripe, Fairweather, and Randy River. These brands, largely unknown to Quebec consumers due to the absence of several of these store banners in the province, rendered Les Ailes de la Mode stores as outlets for all merchandise of Fairweather I.N.C Group.

In-store restaurants and beauty salons were all shut down, and the stores no longer sold cosmetics and pianos. Most checkout and fitting rooms were closed, leaving several of Les Ailes de la Mode' shuttered sections unoccupied. The size of the downtown Montreal store reduced so drastically that it began using the mall corridor, Complexe Les Ailes, to display and sell merchandise. Les Ailes de la Mode' return policy became restricted to exchanges only for items on regular price, with no returns at all for items on sales.

Final years and closure

The management of Carrefour Laval, unsatisfied with Les Ailes de la Mode's new identity and lack of cachet, decided not to renew the store lease upon expiry in February 2011.^[12][13] The management of Complexe Les Ailes had also questioned the future of the store in their mall for similar reasons.^[14]

The closure of the Place Ste-Foy store was announced in March 2014 and completed on February 25, 2015.^[15][16]

The Ailes de la Mode at Complexe Les Ailes closed in early 2016, ^[17] with most of the remaining locations (Drummondville and Chateauguay) unceremoniously closing throughout the year.

The last store in Brossard followed suit in 2017, effectively ending the 24-year-old retailer.

Department stores (closed)

• Brossard - Mail Champlain
• Laval - Carrefour Laval
• Montreal - Complexe Les Ailes
• Ottawa, Ontario - Bayshore Shopping Centre
• Quebec City - Place Sainte-Foy
• Châteauguay - Centre Régional
• Drummondville - Promenades Drummondville

Warehouses (closed)

• Chicoutimi, Place du Royaume
• Trois-Rivières, Centre Les Rivières
• Quebec City - Fleur de Lys centre commercial^[18]
• Pincourt - Le Faubourg de l'Île
• Quebec City - Les Galeries de la Canardière

Les Ailes de la Mode Xpress stores (rebranded as "La Compagnie INC Fairweather")

• Brossard - Quartier DIX30
• Joliette - Galeries Joliette
• Montreal - Carrefour Angrignon, Place Versailles, Place Vertu
• Pointe-Claire - Fairview Pointe-Claire
• Quebec City - Promenades Beauport
• Trois-Rivières - Carrefour Trois-Rivières Ouest
• Sherbrooke - Carrefour de l'Estrie (Now Closed)