Hugo Boss Canada marked the opening of its new Toronto flagship store, Boss Bloor Street, with an intimate dinner for 100 guests on Tuesday. “It’s a private V.I.P. dinner. It’s not our launch. It’s just a teaser, if you will,” said Lindsay Ostridge of the company’s PR and marketing department.
“We’re serving cocktails on the first and second floor [prior to dinner] to allow people to see what all the hard work has gone into in the opening of our flagship,” she said. The three-storey boutique at 83 Bloor St. West officially opened during the first week of December.
Servers from The Butler Did It offered hors d’oeuvres catered by Mark McEwan of North 44 in the boutique before ushering guests to the venue’s third-floor event space at 8 p.m.
Three tables ran the length of the room, lit in amber by nine chandeliers that cast a pattern onto the surrounding walls. Jeffry Roick of McNabb Roick Events dressed the space in black and cream. Vases of cream roses topped tables surrounded by black Louis Ghost chairs. Name cards and logoed Hugo Boss napkins marked each place setting.
“The look is very much in keeping with Boss—simple, sophisticated, elegant, and clean,” Ostridge said of the decor. “We had some people from our head office in Germany and our office here working as a team to develop this event.”
Guests dined on a meal that began with a red and green pear salad with endive, blue goat cheese, and cherry wine vinaigrette, followed by roasted beef tenderloin truffled gnocchi, sautéed spinach, candied beets, and natural jus. Dessert included a warm apple crostata, vanilla crème fraîche, warm toffee sauce, and crisp apple tuile.
Roick arranged cream wing-back chairs in pairs to create an intimate lounge area next to a bar where servers offered Poggio Salvi Brunello Di Montalcino and Faiveley Mercurey Blanc Domaine wines to guests. Silver vases filled with orchids from San Remo Florist topped cocktail tables at either end of the room, which is available for events.
“This is what we strive for and this is what we hope to bring to Toronto by having this event space available for cultural events and parties,” said Ostridge, who reported that the brand is planning to hold a larger party to mark the Boss Bloor Street launch in March.
