In the Hudson's Bay Company's nearly 340-year history, odds are the brand has never been referred to as "gangsta." But the word - which today has less association with crime than with cool - was how actor Mark Salling, better known as Puck on the hit show Glee, described his look on a recent night in Vancouver.
"Keepin it gangsta at the hockey game, hbc is hookin it up for me and @druiddude," he wrote, referring to his co-star Kevin McHale. In another Tweet, he thanked Hbc and posted a picture of himself with McHale in their new threads, standing against the city's stunning backdrop.
"They look awesome, total '70s throwback," writes McHale of the hand-knit heritage sweater and tri-colour tuque in a follow-up e-mail. "I will definitively still be wearing the clothes long after the Olympics are over."
Thanks to an Hbc gifting suite, celebrities have been blanketed in patriotic apparel during the Games. Actress Rachel Bilson looked cool in a Hudson's Bay blanket coat reimagined by Toronto label Smythe, her Canadian beau, Hayden Christensen, sported a red athlete's parka.
At the Roots store on Robson Street, Lorne Michaels, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Seth Meyers were among the bold-facers dropping in pick up Canada-themed gear. "Canada is in vogue right now," Roots co-founder Michael Budman says from Vancouver, noting that the store set a new record for single-day sales revenues. "This has been great branding exercise."
"We love to put Canada [on our clothes] but our name is also prominent on everything we do," Budman says.
For him, the notion of Brand Canada is not news. Roots has championed an outdoorsy sensibility since 1973 and its history of locally made leather goods is attracting a groundswell of customers in Asia. Other flag-wavers include Dean and Dan Caten, the expatriate twins who showed their DSquared2 fall/winter collection in Milan yesterday.
Toronto-based Canada Goose was selling its now-iconic jackets to the international jet set years before they were embraced by hipsters here.
Now, with the Olympics on home soil, there's a golden opportunity to package and promote Brand Canada globally.
"It's a great endorsement; you can't get better press," Hbc's fashion director, Suzanne Timmins, says of the celeb factor. "They don't have to wear the clothes. There's no one asking them to, we're not paying them. We're really thrilled."
"It's a brilliant way when Canada is centre-stage to send a reinvented message to the world," says Sally Hogshead, a Florida-based branding expert and author of Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation.
"It's capitalizing upon what's essentially free media and it's not just using athletics or ceremonies to update the message but doing it in a clever, subtle way."
It also doesn't hurt that many young consumers today value "authenticity" - a notion associated with the reputation and aesthetic of many made-in-Canada brands.
"There aren't a lot of people who dislike Canada; it's a country that people admire around the world," says Dani Reiss, president and chief executive officer of Canada Goose, which produces its garments in Canada and also provides materials free to communities on the North.
Reiss believes the appreciation for authenticity is here to stay.
"It's more than a trend, it's fed by reality."
In DSquared2's case, Canada provides a steady stream of inspiration, as well as distinguishing the twin designers from their high-fashion peers. For the fall, their men's line goes haute hockey.
"It's such an obvious element," Dan Caten says by phone. "If someone cool can sport a hockey jersey and make it look cool, then that's fashion."
The notion of Brand Canada is certainly open to be personalization. When Hbc designer Tu Ly appeared on CTV's Olympic Morning this week, he paired a buffalo-check Henley shirt with a hot pink blazer.
The same thinking went into inviting 10 Canadian design studios to transform the signature Hudson's Bay point blanket into au courant coats.
"I think Canadians have never felt more Canadian and that's a great trend to come out of this," says Renée Labbé, an expat who works in L.A. as the vice-president of global trends at Stylesight, a trend-forecasting company. "I think that will live on maybe longer than the world seeing this as a trend."
Hogshead cautions that Canada-branded apparel has a way to go before being on par with the I Love New York campaign or the iconic Harvard sweatshirts that people buy even when they don't attend.
"Right now, the layer of meaning is the Olympics and it's possible that that layer of meaning may go away," she says.
"But it's possible to start building a richer, more compelling story behind the icon and that's something within Canada's power to do."