Canadian clothing might traditionally bring to mind heavy-duty coats, sweaters and toques, and Indigenous designs such as moccasins and Cowichan sweaters. But what other designs define Canadian fashion in 2026?
We curated this list of 15 notable clothing and accessory labels from across the country to find out, and to explore the opportunities, challenges and importance of making clothes in Canada.
These recently founded, independently run brands are inspiring new ways of thinking about homegrown style. The bold upstarts and trailblazers on this list prioritize upcycling, collaborating with local talent and keeping their supply chains close to home.
Here’s a closer look at the people behind the “Made in Canada” label.
Contemporary womenswear label T. Line was founded in 2022 by fashion-industry veterans Britt Barkwell and Alia Bissett. The Toronto brand specializes in tailored shirts and elevated wardrobe essentials.
Barkwell said she and Bissett approach the shirt as the foundation of a modern wardrobe, continually reinterpreting it through proportion, fabrication, colour and styling.
T. Line’s core collection includes classic white button-ups, as well as tuxedo and striped banker’s shirts in 100-per-cent cotton fabrics such as sateen, poplin, oxford and voile. It also sells seasonal separates that work for both the office and off-duty.
Excluding knitwear, which represents roughly 2 per cent of the brand’s business, the collection is made in Toronto.
Producing locally allows Barkwell and Bissett to be more hands-on in the manufacturing process and more agile when it comes to running their business. If a new style is popular, for example, the company can produce more units relatively quickly.
“Shorter supply chains and close relationships with our manufacturing partners allow us to react more quickly and make thoughtful decisions without being as dependent on a long, complex production cycle,” Barkwell said.
This Quebec fashion label, founded in 2020, produces womenswear and menswear at its factory in Montreal. The company, which employs about 10 to 15 in-house team members depending on the season, was developed around founder and brand director Jobair Jaber’s vision of a fashion label that uplifts Canadian craftsmanship, makers and farmers.
The line centres the concept of Canadian-made classics, Jaber said, adding that the brand sources some of its wool directly from Canadian farmers and uses that material across a quarter of the collection. Designed to be seasonless and timeless, the line features hand-knit wool sweaters, tailored wool blazers, organic cotton T-shirts, rugby shirts and other pieces.
“Made-in-Canada is at the heart of what we do,” Jaber said. “We believe in being close to our production in order to better control it and manage it. The further you are from it, the less awareness you really have, and we value that awareness beyond having a lower cost structure or the ease of not having to deal with manufacturing obstacles.”
This contemporary fashion and accessories label was founded in 2022 by Wanze Song, a Toronto Metropolitan University graduate and former fellow at the school’s Suzanne Rogers Fashion Institute.
The Chinese-Canadian designer, who previously worked at Beaufille, Kiko Kostadinov and Xiao Li, was inspired to launch her eponymous label after finding viral success with her Dumpling bag. Song continues to offer the popular style online in a range of colours and materials, as well as both womenswear and menswear.
The brand’s garments and soft accessories, the majority of which are made at her studio in downtown Toronto from Italian and Japanese materials, reflect Song’s dedication to pattern-making, functionality and classic tailoring. Her fall collection includes a track jacket in cotton-wool plaid, belted pants in fabrics such as denim and cotton flax, and cinched dresses and gathered skirts that can be dressed up or down.
Founded by award-winning stylist and fashion consultant Juliana Schiavinatto, Re–Pull is a unisex fashion label inspired by reconstruction, architectural form, utility and upcycling. These are statement-making clothes with an emphasis on deconstructed details and exaggerated silhouettes.
“We take existing garments – primarily tailoring, shirting, denim and workwear – and use them as the starting point for new clothing and accessories,” explained Schiavinatto. “The styles are designed to be repeatable and produced in small atelier runs, and because the source garments vary, each piece carries the character of the garments it came from.”
Worn by celebrities such as Rosé, Julia Fox and Lola Young, the Toronto-based line started in 2023 with just three pieces: a shirt, a pair of jeans and a jacket. It maintains a similar capsule-wardrobe approach today.
Every piece is developed and made in Canada, either in-house or in partnership with local production partners. “Keeping production close matters because reconstruction is a hands-on process,” Schiavinatto said. It also allows the brand to maintain a high level of craftsmanship and a greater degree of flexibility, she added.
Founded in 2022, this sustainably minded Vancouver fashion label has stockists across Canada and the United States, including One of a Few in Vancouver and Halifax’s Slowly Slowly.
The line is seasonless and offers unisex sizing. Its signature style is the Bungee shirt, featuring adjustable side cutouts and made from upcycled vintage men’s button-ups. Past drops have included studded denim, lace wrap skirts and strappy tanks.
Designer and founder Alydar Twack-Hansen said the brand’s mission is to upcycle textiles into pieces that feel “as elevated and attainable as their fast fashion counterparts.” She added that keeping Nena Hansen small and local is the only way to ensure its supply and production chain remains truly sustainable. Every piece is one-of-a-kind and handsewn by Twack-Hansen in Gastown, using second-hand garments and deadstock fabrics.
Founded in 2020 by husband-and-wife team Dwayne Vatcher and Brittney MacKinnon, Body of Work specializes in sportswear-inspired apparel that’s designed, knit, dyed, cut and sewn in and around Toronto.
Working closely with Canadian mills and factories, the label treats fabric development as an integral part of its design process.
The brand’s minimalist designs are built around its custom-developed fabrics, including a fine-rib jersey for women and sueded French terry for men. Drawing on their shared interest in design, active lifestyles and the outdoors, Vatcher and MacKinnon wanted to bridge the worlds of sportswear and luxury, and embrace Canadian craftsmanship and character.
“We believe deeply in the integrity and quality of Canadian manufacturing, so we have been committed to making our products here,” MacKinnon said. “The pursuit of beauty is at the centre of everything we do, and it is this sentiment that guides our thinking.”
Ecologyst started its life in 2002 as Sitka, a surfboard and apparel brand based in Victoria. Later, confronting the environmental impact of the fashion industry, the company shifted toward sustainable apparel and committed to North American manufacturing in 2014, before rebranding as Ecologyst five years later.
Today, approximately 90 per cent of Ecologyst’s clothing is made in Canada, including in Victoria, Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. Product development is guided by a focus on natural and recycled materials; ethical production through responsibly sourced materials, manufacturing and labour standards; and timeless design intended to endure beyond trend cycles.
The brand’s signature pieces include its made-in-Victoria 100-per-cent wool overshirts and its 100-per-cent cotton T-shirts milled and made in Canada. The label also still sells its popular Peak hoodie, dating back to its Sitka days.
“It’s imperative to our brand ethos that we keep our manufacturing as close to home as possible,” said Julia Pakstas, product and development lead. “On a practical level, it helps us to reduce our carbon footprint by reducing overseas shipping, but it also means supporting our local communities of makers, artists, as well as the Canadian economy.”
Located in East Vancouver, Alterior is a hybrid retailer, design studio, art gallery and clothing label run by brothers Cole and Dallas Chreptyk.
Mixing elements of menswear, workwear and graphic design, Alterior produces limited-run collaborations with creatives such as Montreal artist Hugo Bernier and clothing brands including Vancouver’s James Coward.
The brothers handmake 100 per cent of their cut-and-sew line in their shop. Visitors might see Cole sitting behind a sewing machine in the back of the space, working on wide trousers made from Japanese denim sourced from Okayama.
“Our design ethos is quite simple: Create with intention and make clothing and products that we want to use day in and day out,” Dallas said.
For the Chreptyks, sewing the clothes in-store means they have more control over the end product. It also gives their customers a direct connection to the process.
Dallas added that the sewing-machine-to-rack concept is still a unique one across Canada and the U.S. “Our customers really enjoy being able to walk into our store and buy a product that is being made right there on site, by one set of hands.”
Warren Steven Scott/Supplied
Warren Steven Scott first launched in 2018 with a collection of acrylic, laser-cut earrings inspired by the traditional forms of Scott’s Nlaka’pamux and Salish ancestry. The earrings, originally created to complement the designer’s runway presentation at the inaugural Indigenous Fashion Arts Festival in Toronto, became the starting point for Scott’s namesake brand, which expanded into menswear this summer.
The brand’s debut men’s collection, The Place Where We Went Together, Remember?, takes a playful approach to everyday dressing, with versatile embellished pieces such as elegant shirts, sequin pants and statement coats.
“I designed this collection for the person who wants to wear anything but a classic white shirt,” Scott said. “Someone who wants to make the essential a statement.” His intention is for the designs to be enjoyed and worn daily, not saved for special occasions.
Today, 100 per cent of the line is designed and manufactured in Toronto. “I live here, work here, and being made-in-Canada is just part of the fabric of what makes Warren Steven Scott possible,” he said.
Bowen Island, B.C.-based independent designer Dana Lee Brown founded her eponymous label in 2022 and released her first products at the beginning of the following year. She started out with sweatshirts made from custom wool and organic cotton fleece, and has since expanded into selvedge denim, canvas workwear, knitwear, woven shirts and accessories.
Lee Brown custom-develops all of her fabrics, often working with North American supply chains that begin at the farm level. Her Crawl jeans and double-layer toques are among her biggest sellers; the latter are made using wool sourced from a Canadian farm that breeds naturally dark-coloured sheep.
That focus on materials and production has led the designer to question what a “Made in Canada” label really means. “I think a simple label can sometimes oversimplify where a garment actually comes from, because there can be so many different steps and places involved in making it,” she said. To address this, the brand’s labels include information about where farming, spinning and assembly take place.
Rather than seeing Canadian manufacturing as restrictive, Lee Brown sees it as part of the design process.
“I’m often starting with what’s available to me,” she said. “As a result, those limitations have become part of the creative process.”
Growing up in a family of knitters, sewers and menders in Toronto, multidisciplinary artist Judy Carter developed a practice that spans ceramics, textile art and jewellery. It all comes together as Jude, a jewellery line that celebrates Carter’s love of wabi-sabi – the perfectly imperfect Japanese approach to beauty – stemming from when she attended high school in Tokyo during the city’s 1980s design boom.
That sensibility is expressed in Carter’s handcrafted sterling silver necklaces, earrings, rings and charms, each of which feel personal and one-of-a-kind. Designs feature carvings of sun faces, flowers (one based on a scribble Carter’s mother left her) and fish, emblematic of the designer’s boutique, L’eau Muskoka, which sits dockside in a century-old boathouse in Port Carling, Ont.
The store, which opened in 2014, carries Carter’s jewellery, alongside her ceramics and 100-per-cent cotton wares. Carter splits her time between her two studios in Toronto and Muskoka, where she works with local makers on her pieces.
“What matters most to me is the relationships,” she said. “My team makes the work feel fun, and that closeness is only possible because we’re all making things together, in person, here at home.”
Niamh Wilson is constantly trawling for vintage fabrics in her home city of Toronto to create her brand’s functional and fun handbags.
“I joke that I do farm-to-table fashion,” the designer said of her process, which starts deep in the bins of her local thrift and textile stores. She then brings the fabric back to her studio, where her ideas to come to life.
“I mess around until whatever idea was in my brain materializes in real life,” Wilson said.
Wilson’s loose, fabric-first approach has allowed her to get ultra-creative with styles that range from bright, patterned and reversible hobo totes to frilly, fringed and quilted shoulder bags. The designer makes everything by hand in the city’s Junction neighbourhood. There, she spends time on one of her favourite parts of the business: creating custom silk bags for brides.
“The process always feels novel,” she said.
Erica Leal loves that every new piece for her jewellery line brings a new stone and a new set of challenges.
After becoming fascinated with metal in art school, the Edmonton-born, Vancouver-based jewellery designer spent years working as a metalsmith and goldsmith for other brands before launching her own label in 2017. Her early collections focused on delicate, constructivist-inspired pieces that featured geometric acrylic inlays.
In 2020, Leal branched out into fine jewellery, which she said allows her to work slower and maintain quality under one roof in downtown Vancouver. When the designer collaborates with other craftspeople on complex casting or gemstone setting, they’re just a few blocks away.
“If we don’t use and support those skills here, they won’t be passed down to the next generation, and eventually, we’ll have no choice but to look elsewhere for that expertise,” Leal said.
For her, keeping things local is just as important as maintaining a sense of discovery, especially when it comes to introducing clients to new and unconventional stones. There are diamonds, sure, but also teal sapphires, reddish Umba sapphires and plenty of unexpected gems to play with – all sourced from Canadian suppliers with whom she works regularly.
For Tammy Hannaford, jewellery making is a way to maintain ties to her childhood in Rigolet, Nunatsiavut, in Labrador, where she was raised in an Inuit community of makers who carved, sewed and crafted with materials sourced from the land.
The designer creates earrings from antlers and other animal byproducts reclaimed from traditional sustenance hunting. Each piece begins with the natural contours of caribou, elk or deer antler, which Hannaford decorates with wildflowers picked near her home in Bancroft, Ont., and then seals in resin. Some of the antlers are gifted by community members, while she receives others in trades for her creations – a circular system rooted in reciprocity.
Hannaford’s jewellery has attracted wider attention after appearing on the popular CBC/APTN show North of North. Through social media, Hannaford has forged ties to her community all over the country.
“It seems kind of silly to be so fulfilled through social media but it really allows me to connect with so many people,” she said.
In 2023, Gigi Wong co-founded handbag line Atacz with the motto “We knit to care” – an eco-minded ethos born from concern about the growing impact of waste on climate change.
From its Vancouver headquarters, Atacz has transformed more than 100,000 recycled water bottles into lightweight accessories. Each bag begins with nylon and polyester yarn that is certified to be free from harmful levels of restricted chemicals. That material is then knitted into high-function pieces that blend sporty style and colourful finishes. The label’s designs include a barrel bag with brightly hued rope drawstrings and a knotted bucket bag that transforms into a backpack.
For Wong, the goal isn’t just to turn waste into something usable, it’s also to encourage people to think differently about how and what they buy.
“We aim for more people to see that we are not only a commercial brand, but also an educational brand that promotes awareness of sustainability and responsible design,” she said.