Vancouver clothing boutique celebrates 50 years of style

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In 1975, Serena Kwei opened her first clothing store at 1050 West Pender St.

The name of the Vancouver boutique, which offered a selection of women’s clothing, was called, simply, Serena.

“I always wanted to have clothing stores, and one day, a chain of stores, and that’s how I started,” says Kwei.

Having worked in retail at department stores and in local boutiques, Kwei entered the industry with a bounty of interest, some sales history and not much experience as a business owner.

“It was actually quite tough, because nobody knew about us,” Kwei recalls of the early days. “We couldn’t get into a good shopping mall because nobody knew about our background, because we had no history.”

Focusing on merchandising first, Kwei set about drawing foot traffic into the new, street-level store by creating visually interesting displays that would make people want to stop and see what was in the store.

“I made it look very nice,” she says.

That visual approach eventually paid off, bringing in a representative from Richmond Centre to the downtown boutique to see what the buzz was all about. They liked what they saw.

“He said, ‘Well, this is the type of store that we want in our mall,’ ” Kwei recounts. “And that’s how we got into Richmond Centre.”

Over the following five decades, Kwei has worked to build her homegrown business, taking a customer-first, clientele focused approach to retail. Kwei introduced the name Bellissima in the 1980s, in response to the new stores that were then entering Vancouver from Toronto and Montreal.

The name, she felt, introduced a more “sophisticated” appeal to the company that she hoped could rival the larger boutiques.

“Back then, it was baby boomers all working,” Kwei says. “My goal at that time was to help women to be successful in whatever they’re doing. Even now, I like to see women happy. When you dress well, and look well, you just feel so much more confident in everything you do.”

Today, Kwei currently has nine stores, seven in the Lower Mainland and two in Victoria, under the names Serena or Bellissima West. In its stores, the company retails a variety of domestic and international brands including Joseph Ribkoff, Melissa Paige and Frank Lyman.

“A lot of things are made in Canada,” Kwei says of the selection of designer lines.

The success of the business, Kwei underscores, has always had much to do with her sales staff, and their connection to the individual shoppers.

“They have a really good rapport with the customers,” she says, noting many of her employees have been with the company for years.

One such employee is Parvis Bhiman.

Bhiman started working at one of the company’s stores in 1986 during university before stepping away to raise a family. She returned to the business in 2017.

“There are many other staff who have been with Bellissima for decades who are hardworking, loyal and integral to Bellissima’s success,” says Bhiman, who is the manager of the Metrotown location and also oversees marketing for the company.

“I have staff that have worked for me for 20 to 30 years,” Kwei says. “It’s like a big family.”

The Belissima West customer, Kwei says, covers “quite a big spectrum” of shoppers. Many of them, she notes proudly, have been shopping at her boutiques for decades.

“We have 30-plus-year-old working professionals. We have stay-at-home moms, and we have retirees that appreciate styles and sophistication,” Kwei summarizes of the customer base.

Kwei also points to her passion for “quality and style” as additional key elements to the success of her business in an industry and market where bricks-and-mortar survival has consistently been a challenge.

Though, business hasn’t always been easy.

At one point, the company had more than 40 stores, a number that has shrunk dramatically to the nine she owns today.

Bellissima West, Kwei notes, was separate from the Bellissima boutiques that closed in other parts of Canada. Kwei’s sister ran the other business, going independent from Kwei in 2020. That’s when Kwei added the word “West” to her business name to help customers differentiate the two.

Kwei points to COVID-19 as a particularly challenging time for the business, noting she mainly countered closures and slowdowns by reducing opening hours and brought new styles in to meet changing consumer demands.

The family owned business’s smaller scale, along with its emphasis on nearly one-to-one customer service, have helped it to survive when some big-box Canadian companies like Hudson’s Bay haven’t been able to.

“Because it’s a smaller operation, I can change a lot faster,” she adds.

As she looks back at 50 years in business, Kwei admits that she never imagined that she would still be leading the business like she is now.

“I wasn’t even thinking that far. I just wanted to survive. Because everybody, even our next-door neighbour, which was a clothing store, he was telling people in the trade show, ‘Don’t sell to us. We won’t survive. In one year, they’ll be gone.’ That kind of thing,” she says. “But I never listened to them.

“And I’m exactly where I want to be.”

Aharris@postmedia.com