Sector Spotlight: Women's Clothing Labels

June 27, 2025

Some may have considered Montreal to be the beating heart of Canadian textile manufacturing.

The city boasted a vibrant fashion industry, humming with sewing machines, pattern cutters, and made-in-Canada garments. Brands like Reitmans, Penningtons, Le Château, and Dynamite were all born from this industrial backbone.

But times—and global supply chains—change.

Today, most of the clothing on Canadian store racks is no longer made here. Labour costs, scale, and the relentless economics of fast fashion have pushed the bulk of manufacturing offshore. That vibrant textile ecosystem that once stretched from Chabanel to Saint-Laurent has thinned (though not disappeared!). And while the brands may still be headquartered in Canada, their garments often aren’t.

• Dynamite and Garage? Their products are overwhelmingly manufactured overseas.
• Reitmans, Penningtons, RW&CO, and Thyme Maternity? All maintain Canadian roots—but with manufacturing almost entirely outsourced to Asia and beyond.
• Aritzia? The new darling of the Canadian fashion scene? While it boasts a North American retail footprint, it also almost entirely outsources its manufacturing to Asia.

And then there’s Roots...

For decades, Roots stood as the archetype of a Canadian brand—beavers, salt-and-pepper sweats, Olympic pride stitched into every seam. Founded in 1973 by Michael Budman and Don Green, two American expats who fell in love with Algonquin Park, Roots wasn’t just marketed as Canadian—it felt Canadian. The brand was iconic, its identity inseparable from national pride.

But over time, that identity was diluted. In 2015, Budman and Green sold the company to Searchlight Capital Partners, a U.S. private equity firm. Since then, Roots has remained headquartered in Toronto and publicly traded on the TSX—but the ownership is now majority foreign, and the Canadian content of its products has dropped sharply. Today, Roots still designs in Toronto, employs about 2,000 people in Canada, but only their leather goods — belts, bags, wallets—are still crafted in Canada.

Canada still has a small but growing cadre of independent fashion brands committed to doing things differently. Labels like Encircled, Kotn, and Message Factory are carving out meaningful space by emphasizing sustainability, ethical production, and transparency. Their garments are designed, cut, and sewn in Canada—often in small batches, with organic or upcycled fabrics, and with workers paid a living wage.

But that kind of integrity comes at a cost. These brands can’t compete with $9 T-shirts churned out by global giants. And they’re not trying to. They’re betting on a different consumer—someone who values durability, traceability, and a supply chain that doesn’t hide behind glossy branding.

So where does that leave the average Canadian shopper?

Canadian shoppers don’t have it easy. It can be hard to find clothing that’s truly local—and harder still to afford it.

But there are still great options. A growing number of independent Canadian brands are designing and making their clothes here, with a focus on ethics, sustainability, and transparency. Many larger homegrown chains still support local design, retail jobs, and operations. And let's not forget that some foreign-owned brands contribute very meaningfully retail footprints that support important Canadian jobs.

They don’t necessarily all contribute equally—but that’s exactly why we built the CANADA Score. To help you make the most educated decisions you can.

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