Paul Long started his fashion brand humbly, to say the least.

It was 2013, and he needed a place to sell his wool T-shirts.

He rented a vacant lot in Victoria, BC and, because he couldn’t afford new materials, built a shed out of reclaimed wood. He didn’t know it at the time, but that act of thrift would soon become the core of his business.

His plan, at first, was to create a line of wool basics that were made entirely in Canada — from material through to production. But his timing was ill-fated: while nearly a century ago Canada was home to the largest woolen mill in the British Empire (Dominion Woollens & Worsteds in Cambridge, ON), facilities were closing just as Long was starting his company.

“As a lot of these manufacturers were closing, they were doing closing-out sales,”

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