Is there anything more Canadian than a pair of grey roots sweatpants? Didn’t think so.
Canada’s famous sweatpant and sweatshirt brand has an interesting history that is distinctly Canadian. In the newest segment of Her Campus Carleton’s History of Fashion series, we look at the history of Roots Canada.
In 1973, Roots Canada was founded by Michael Budman and Don Green, who met at a summer camp in Algonquin Park. To showcase the love they have for Canada, they opened their first store in August of 1973 in Toronto on Yonge St.
The two men originally founded Roots as a footwear company that sold negative-heel shoes, a shoe that is designed to relieve pressure on a person’s back and encourage proper posture, before switching their business model over to making leather goods, like leather jackets, leather bags, and leather belts. Eventually, they moved to manufacture the famous Roots Beaver Athletics (RBA) which showcased the famous beaver logo.
You may be wondering why Roots chose a beaver to be their mascot and logo. Budman and Green chose the beaver as their brand’s symbol because of what the beaver stands for in Canadian culture. It is seen as an emblem of Canada and an example of the Canadian wilderness as well as being a community builder (because of the animal’s ability to create dams). Roots believed that choosing the beaver tied their goal of creating a brand that represented Canada together with the Canadian wilderness they had fallen in love with during that summer camp in Algonquin Park.
When the brand first took off, it did extremely well with its negative-heel shoes. They had created a luxury brand that was ready to take the next step in creating more casual clothing that could be worn every day by everyday people.
With the popularity in the casual clothing aspect of the brand and the leather business growing, the number of Roots stores also began to grow. In 1977, there were 65 stores located throughout North America and Europe with over 200 employees. By 2013, Roots had 65 stores overseas, in Japan, Taiwan, China, and over 120 stores in Canada and the United States — over 2,000 people were employed by Roots in Canada alone.
As of 2022, there are currently 200 stores in North America. The brand’s five flagship stores are in Canada, with three of them being in Toronto, one in Vancouver, and one in Montreal. The brand brought in over 329.9 million Canadian dollars in 2019 — not a bad income for a company that started as a way for two city boys to showcase their love for Canada and the Canadian landscape.
Citation: