Canadian menswear retailer Tip Top is looking to update its tired and thrifty image by changing its clothes - and its overall positioning strategy.

The days of selling cheap sweaters in bins at the front of the store are being replaced with an era of designer fashions and tasteful, classic styles to be housed in newly-renovated stores.

"We wanted Tip Top to stop relying primarily on price and wanted to bring it back to a sense of taste, style and quality," says Michael Sherman, vice-president, corporate and public affairs for Dylex, the chain's owner. Because the retailer was traditionally known for its tailored clothing, Sherman adds, it wanted to play up this, its "strong suit."

Across the country, a teaser billboard campaign, which began running mid-August, features a tastefully-attired model with the headline: "We're Changing Our Clothes." Only recently was the Tip Top name added.

Besides the billboards, print ads are currently running in major newspapers across the country, along with an eight-page run-of-press insert in the September issue of Saturday Night magazine.

"ÔWe're changing our clothes' is the most honest and direct thing they can say," says Dorothy McMillan, creative director for the retailer's aor, The BrainStorm Group of Toronto. "They are not trying to be clever - just honest."

Whereas previous ad campaigns promoted Tip Top's low-priced casual clothes, the new ads will stress style, quality and reasonable prices, says Sherman.

The ads feature clothes from Tip Top's fall collection, which will kickstart the chain's new and exclusive Canadian licensing agreement with u.s. designers Wilke-Rodriguez and Sanford Bryant.

The addition of outside designers is entirely new for the chain which, before now, sold only house brands.

Other menswear lines to be included in stores this fall include Profile Studio, Profile Sport, Kenneth Cole, British Open Golf, T.T. & Company, and Pierre Cardin.

Even though the chain will now offer more upscale merchandise, Sherman says the company is not trying to compete with high-end retailers, but is instead carving a niche of its own.

"We are not competing with the high-end stores such as Harry Rosen or Holt Renfrew or the low-end, lower-cost structure of Moore's," says Sherman. He says the company's niche is the untapped middle market - or what company president Albert Israel describes as "filling in the void between high-end specialty retailers and stores which offer limited selection at low price points."

Besides overhauling its stock, the chain hired Toronto interior designers Yabu-Pushelburg to redesign two high-traffic stores in Toronto and one in Mississauga, Ont. The new stores feature wood paneling in a brighter setting - a shift from Tip Top's traditionally dark stores.

Other store changes include specially-designed tables where staff can co-ordinate outfits for customers. And there will be a wider and more-visible selection of men's accessories.

If the concept is well-received, other stores in the 88-year-old chain are slated to be revamped. Meanwhile, three new stores (Calgary, Trois Rivieres, Que. and Thunder Bay, Ont.) are set to open at the end of September, raising the national total to 125 stores.

The company's repositioning strategy began one year ago when it hired Israel, who had, according to the company, already established himself as a menswear manufacturer and supplier to exclusive retailers like Harry Rosen and Holt Renfrew.

According to Sherman, awareness of the Tip Top name was great but customers were saying the clothing needed to be changed. "A lot more young people are shopping at Tip Top than people give us credit for," he insists. The store will continue to cater to a wide target audience of men between 25 and 60.

Retailer Moore's - The Suit People, which caters to a similar demographic, says it has no plans to follow Tip Top's lead. According to Michael Velazquez, advertising manager for Moore's: "They decided to do their own thing and we are going to continue doing what we have been doing and being very successful at it."