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Vintage Toronto Ads: Country Look Gothic
Source: The Toronto Sun, November 1, 1971.
Marketing tip: when marketing a new product that tries to add a touch of country amidst rock n’ roll, it never hurts to tell your ad designer to come up with homage number 5,722 to Grant Wood’s iconic painting, American Gothic.
Harry Rosen and his brother Lou opened their first store at 407 Parliament Street in 1954. An advertisement announcing that location’s opening laid out Harry’s aims and dreams under an expressionless photo of the tailor headlined with “Dig That Happy Man”:
During my years as an employee in the Parliament Street shopping area I always had a dream of a shop of my own. I knew that when that day would come that it would be an unusual shop. That dream has now found realization…We aim to cater to young men who get as much kick out of wearing good things as we get out of selling them. We desire to follow the progressive American stylings that have sparkle and pep that spells “class”…Put that touch of glamour in your spring clothes at the price YOU wish to pay.
Rosen moved from Cabbagetown to Richmond Street in 1961. A second store was opened at Yorkdale in 1968, a year before Rosen sold the company to Dylex, where he became the general manager of the retailer’s Tip Top Tailors division. By the 1990s, Rosen repurchased the chain that bore his name.
Additional material from the April 17, 1954 edition of the Globe and Mail.