Joe Mimran: The Designer Behind Club Monaco and Joe Fresh
- Joe Mimran
Joe Mimran trained as an accountant before moving into fashion, and co-founded Club Monaco in 1985, a Toronto label whose clean, minimal look grew into an international chain and was later sold to Ralph Lauren.
In 2006 he created Joe Fresh for the grocery retailer Loblaw, putting designed clothing at supermarket prices into grocery aisles and building one of the largest apparel businesses in the country.
Two brands, one method
Both brands worked the same way: a simple design language, a tight colour palette and a price that made the look reachable, executed at national scale rather than as a boutique.
He has since run his own investment and design advisory work, and continues to be involved in brand and product development.
Several seasons in the Den
Mimran joined Dragons' Den in 2013 and sat on the Canadian panel for several seasons before leaving the show in 2017. The pitches from those seasons are indexed here season by season.
Any consumer pitch that turned on packaging, brand or retail distribution ran through him, because he had built exactly that twice.
Products Joe Mimran backed in the Den
RateHub
a comparison site for financial products with an in-house mortgage brokerage
