Aritzia Inc.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to Aritzia's first quarter of fiscal year 2023 earnings call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero. I will now turn the conference over to Beth Reed, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and thanks for joining Arisia's first quarter fiscal 2023 earnings call. On the call today, I'm joined by Jennifer Wong, our Chief Executive Officer, Todd Engledue, our Chief Financial Officer, and Brian Hill, our Founder and Executive Chair. Following management's discussion, we'll host a question and answer period open to analysts and investors. Please note that remarks on this call may include our expectations, future plans, and intentions that may constitute forward-looking statements. The uncertain and dynamic nature of the global COVID-19 pandemic and its ongoing impact could continue to materially alter our performance. We would refer you to our most recently filed management's discussion and analysis and our annual information form, which include a summary of the material assumptions as well as risks and factors that could affect our future performance and our ability to deliver on these forward-looking statements. Our earnings release, the related financial statements, and the MD&A are available on CDAR as well as the investor relations section of our website at arisia.com. I'll now turn the call over to Jennifer.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Todd and I will share some prepared remarks, and Brian will join us for the Q&A. I'm excited to report our results for the first quarter of fiscal 2023 and our plan for continuing to capitalize on the many growth opportunities we see ahead. We had a terrific start to the year. Demand for our much-loved, everyday luxury experience from new and loyal clients has continued to exceed our highest expectations. In Q1, our business sustained its exceptional momentum as we saw strength in all geographies and all channels, particularly in the United States. Propelling our business forward has not come without its challenges. Our team did a remarkable job this quarter. They continued to navigate the ongoing headwinds of the global landscape to deliver for our clients and our business. Aritzia has never been stronger or better positioned for the future. While we're encouraged by the trends we're seeing in our data, we continue to remain vigilant as we monitor the ever-evolving macro backdrop. We are focused on driving long-term, lasting growth through our strategic initiatives, and as always, investing in the infrastructure required to scale for years to come. While Todd will provide you with our detailed financial results, I am pleased to share that we delivered net revenue of $408 million in Q1, an increase of 65% from last year. led by our business in the U.S., which continued to accelerate at a phenomenal pace, increasing 81% from last year. In Canada, we grew by 52%, with outstanding comparable sales growth and the benefit of reopened boutiques in eastern Canada. Our boutiques and the progress we made on our geographic expansion drove our exceptional performance and U.S. growth. In Q1, our retail business surpassed our expectations as it increased 101% from last year. We opened three new boutiques in the quarter to a tremendous client response, two of which were in new markets, Las Vegas and Miami. And we are pleased with the early results we're seeing in our new boutiques and our new markets. The success of our geographic expansion strategy builds on our already flourishing boutique portfolio. and positions Aritzia for continued growth into the future. In e-commerce, we saw our traffic grow further in Q1. The US led that growth, where traffic increased by almost 50% from last year. To maintain our momentum, we added new and improved features and functionalities to Aritzia.com. We continued to focus on empowering our clients to shop with us wherever, whenever, and however they want. This included improving our product discovery. We were especially excited about launching our more sustainable styles page. We better enabled clients to effortlessly shop the 63% of our spring-summer collection made from certified organic or recycled materials. While we continued to make our assortment more sustainable, we also delivered on two of our product expansion initiatives. In Q1, we launched our first ever swim collection, and we extended our footwear offering through our first partnership with Vans. That said, we saw key programs and proven sellers continue to resonate with clients and drive our strong demand. Selling in our professional and fashion assortment increased as our clients began to return to the office, social events, and travel, all while maintaining our momentum in lifestyle apparel. Our business model continues to enable us to provide our clients with beautiful products for all aspects of their life. Combination of our geographic expansion and beautiful product collections continued to fuel our brand awareness and client acquisition. In Q1, we made progress on our path to getting famous in the US. Our client acquisition continued to accelerate and this growth was on top of what we saw in Q4. As such, we finished the quarter with more clients than ever before. We have doubled our U.S. active client base compared to last year. Like all global businesses, we continue to experience supply chain disruptions and logistics delays in Q1. We maximized the availability of our product and delivered a solid inventory position through strategic inventory management and expedited freight. This decision resulted in significantly higher freight costs But we intentionally prioritized our accelerated momentum. This enabled us to capitalize on the vast majority of our client demand, grow wallet share, and deliver exceptional results. We continued to advance our data and analytics capabilities to empower our team to make informed, data-driven decisions. In Q1, we reached the 50-people milestone on our data and analytics team. We also further developed our data warehouse and deepened our partnership with Tableau. Through this partnership, we will extend their analytics solution to our entire organization. We also advanced our client and sales reporting this quarter, giving us a 360 degree view of our clients and their shopping behaviors. This lays the foundation for more personalization and informs the strategies we will employ to drive deeper loyalty with every client interaction. In Q1, we advanced our channel reporting as well. We focused on enhancements to our e-commerce and concierge dashboards. These dashboards deliver actionable insights that enable us to further optimize our operations and increasingly more value for our clients. Moving to people. we continued to grow our team with world-class talent. We filled a multitude of key positions across all areas and levels of our business. And as always, we put our people first. This past quarter, we began offering Jack.org's mental health support and resources to all of our people in Canada and the US. We also made a donation to support Jack.org's mission of providing these resources to young people across Canada. It is our responsibility, and more important than ever, that we continue to prioritize our commitments to our people and planet. In Q1, we formed our Environmental and Social Board Committee to oversee how we can continue to accelerate the positive impact we are making through our operations, policies, programs, and initiatives. And later this month, we will be publishing our second ESG report and first United Nations Global Compact Communication on Progress. We also continued to focus on uplifting and empowering our communities and all the people we serve. We deepened our partnership with the Stonewall Community Foundation. With them, we started a scholarship program to provide LGBTQ students with financial assistance, opportunities, and access to education. We also partnered with Stonewall to launch our Proud Today, Pride Forever campaign. In this campaign, we shined a light on the stories of LGBTQ revolutionaries. We celebrated their heart, passion, and fearlessness as they paved the way for future generations. I will now pass the call over to Todd to share a more detailed look at our financials.