Aritzia Enlists Petra Collins to Help Make It in America

At first glance, 23-year-old fashion and art photographer Petra Collins seems like an unusual choice to be one of the many faces of Aritzia’s Full of Heart holiday marketing and social campaign, which launches mid-November—Collins was kicked off Instagram last fall for posting a picture of her not-hairless bikini line and has created a vivid menstruation T-shirt for American Apparel—but chief marketing officer Oliver Walsh calls it a “social experiment.” “When we think about the Aritzia customer, she is stylish and connected,” says Walsh. “As a brand, we want to be connected to talent [who] our girl is associated with.”

Collins certainly fits that mold. Since rejoining Instagram last October, she has accumulated 83,402 followers (Aritzia, for its part, has 188,608). It helps that Collins also has a compelling Aritzia story: “It was actually my first job when I was 14 or 15,” says the Toronto native. “I think I was hired for my personal style, something that the brand is all about.”

In case you haven’t heard of Aritzia, it was started in Vancouver 30 years ago and brought to the U.S. in 2007. What started as a third-party boutique catering to trend-loving, fashion-forward women ages 15 to 45 now carries 13 exclusive in-house brands, as well as nonexclusive fashion favorites like Alexander Wang, Rag & Bone, and Frame Denim. But interest in the company is still tepid among the fashion set in the States. The logo and stores don’t fit in with the minimal, architectural retail design that is now native to shopping destinations like New York’s Soho.

However, that hasn’t deterred Aritzia from growing aggressively there. The Soho store located on lower Broadway is 10,000 square feet; the Fifth Avenue Rockefeller Center space is 13,000 square feet; and come July 2015, there will be an equally massive Flatiron boutique. Aritzia’s rapid growth in New York is part of what some call millennial marketing—using social media, an easy mobile experience, and an online magazine to reach young, digitally savvy influencers.

Certainly other retailers like Urban Outfitters and J.Crew have been doing this kind of social-meets-magazine-meets-online approach for a while, but Aritzia’s secret weapon is Collins, whose cult following online is exactly the kind of thing that gets a brand into the hearts and wallets of the cool kids. “We don’t consider ourselves fast fashion, so we aren’t looking for a quick hit in sales because of a one-off celeb or collaboration,” says Walsh. In that case, Collins’ loyalty matters. “When I heard they were coming to New York, I thought I should start shopping there again,” she says. “I can buy something super-inexpensive or invest in one of their cool parkas that I buy every season.” Right now, though, she is in love with a pair of high-waisted bell-bottom workwear pants: “I can wear them around the house, but I also look super-professional in them. It’s the kind of thing that I want people to know is Aritzia.”