By David Ros
In an era when most of the clothing we wear is made in places like China or Bangladesh, Picadilly Fashions has been bucking that trend by manufacturing the overwhelming majority of their products here in Downsview.
According to Jack Dombrowsky, Picadilly’s founder and owner, the company manufactures 90 per cent of their clothing at their more than 30,000 sq.ft., facility located on Chesswood Ave., employing roughly 90-100 workers.
Dombrowsky said that since the company, which sells mostly women’s clothing doesn’t usually require big volume orders, there is a real advantage to manufacturing locally and in house.
“We produce mostly knit work goods, so we’re doing it locally, sometimes it’s cheaper than to do it in China, like with all the transportation and the duties and everything,” Dombrowsky said. “We don’t need to order a big volume, we only need to order what we can produce and we’re finding out that it’s not a big advantage of doing it overseas, it’s harder to control and it’s much more complicated.”
By manufacturing in small volumes, Picadilly is able to adapt and react to changing trends in women’s fashions, giving them the ability to quickly put new clothing on the market to meet those needs. By manufacturing locally, Dombrowsky said that Picadilly is better able to control the quality of the products that they put to market.
Picadilly Fashions is currently in its 40th year of operations after Dombrowsky founded the company at King and Spadina in 1975 with around 15-20 employees.
Since then, Picadilly has become truly a global brand carving a niche for itself, selling its locally made garments in small boutiques around the world from the United States to Europe to Australia and South Africa. The company also boasts showrooms in New York City and Dusseldorf, Germany.
To find out more about Piccadilly please visit their web site at