Riley’s last ride
A CALGARY WESTERN-WEAR INSTITUTION FALLS VICTIM TO THE SPUTTERING OILPATCH
It is, by all admission, not quite the same store that opened in 1901 in Calgary’s primordial downtown. Then, Riley & McCormick was a saddlery, complete with saddle factory for patrons who travelled across town and country on horseback.
Almost 115 years later, the store that stands within a few blocks of the original location would probably be unrecognizable to its first owner, Eneas McCormick. His grandson, Brian Guichon, runs a retail western clothing outlet complete with rows of cowboy boots, some of them elaborately embroidered in silk or fitted with blue cheetah leather. Few of them will ever see the inside of a stirrup. Nor will the ubiquitous black, felt and straw cowboy hats that line its walls be used in the sun, unless to protect the heads of Stampedegoers on the midway.
Outside rural Alberta this is now costume wear — and Riley & McCormick kept up with the times, evolving from saddle-maker to purveyor of fringed leather skirts and rhinestone belts.
But after more than a century in business, a store that is older than Alberta itself is shutting down. “Riley,” the brown wooden horse that has stood guard outside the door since the 1920s, is surrounded by liquidation signs.
“You’re always looking at when things are going to turn around,” said Guichon. “We can suffer through some hard times, but can we put up with two more years of this? Taxes aren’t going down.”
Along with costs rising, sales are down, Guichon said.
“Twenty-thousand people aren’t working in this downtown area. I think we’re just the canary in the coal mine. A lot of businesses are hanging in, waiting for the turnaround. I know it will turn around. It has before and it will again. I’m just not ready to wait that long.”
Western wear is a bellwether industry. When oil and gas booms, so does the city’s Stampede spirit; every bar is decorated with roughhewn fences and flame-retardant hay bales. Windows are painted with scenes of cowboys and horse, and the Stampede breakfasts and private parties can be lavish. It’s standard practice for office workers to dress up for two weeks in July.
But when boom goes bust, so does the show.
Stampede bombed this summer for the second year in a row. Nearcontinuous rain ensured sparse attendance on the midway, despite this year’s reduced-fare entry. On top of that, there were comparatively few parties — companies didn’t want to splurge on BBQ and open bars after months of layoffs. And that meant fewer shoppers at Riley & McCormick.
Guichon knew this would be a make-or-break Stampede for the store. “We really live and breathe the Stampede,” he said. “The last one was especially hard on us.”
But the store has survived booms and busts before.
The original “Riley” was a noted saddle-maker who took on apprentices with the hope of selling his business on to a protégé — which was how McCormick came to own Riley & McCormick in the 1910s, via a deal that secured Riley’s retirement.
The business shifted toward western lifestyle wear in the 1950s, as Hollywood costume designers popularized a Spanish-influenced style that replaced the utilitarian with elaborate collars, fringes and embellishments.
Then in the ’80s, John Travolta — fresh off the success of Saturday Night Fever — starred in Urban Cowboy, an homage to western line dancing.
“It was huge. We couldn’t keep enough stock in,” Guichon said. “There was western bars, western dancing. Everything was huge. And then that disappeared just as fast.”
Combined with the ’80s oil bust and high interest rates, it sent Riley & McCormick into receivership.
That’s when Guichon bought the company from his father in 1983. He went back to basics, he said, and rebuilt the company.
This time, he just doesn’t seem to have the wherewithal to withstand another bust. Those who still wear western attire ironically or outside beer tents are now, for the most part, older, Guichon added.
“The western business, it’s not growing exponentially, it’s not growing like some of the other industries. It’s an older demographic,” he said.
On a recent Friday, as the last of the inventory cleared out in advance of the store’s Aug. 30 closing, the customers were a mix of young people of all races looking to score a good deal; Asian customers trying on Cowboy boots; middle-aged women stocking up on Stampede gear and even a handful of Australian tourists who figured a straw hat wouldn’t do much harm at home — although western wear is a largely a rural phenomenon there, they said.
Merton Mellow was the exception; a white-haired man from the town of Turin, Alta., he was wearing a white hat, blue collared shirt, riding boots and a bolo tie made with petrified wood. He figured he’d stop in to see what was left of the stock while visiting Calgary on business.
Still in agriculture and ranching, he grew up seeing the Riley & McCormick brand on saddles.
“The way the economy is going, it’s no surprise,” he said. “It’s too bad, but I guess that’s the sad reality.”
He ended up not buying anything — didn’t see anything he really needed.
Guichon admits he’s sad. This is a fun business. One Riley & McCormick outlet remains open inside Calgary’s airport, but Guichon isn’t sure how long that will last. Once the retail outlets close, he plans to shift the business to a wholesale and promotional operation — custom T-shirts, that sort of thing.
“It’s tough,” he said, “but nothing lasts forever. It’s the end of an era, and things change.”
I KNOW IT WILL TURN AROUND . ... I’M JUST NOT READY TO WAIT THAT LONG.