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Opening and operating B.Textile was a learning curve for both the Bobrowski brothers and their grandparents, just about two decades apart.
Adam and David Bobrowski reopened their grandparents’ Toronto-based textile business, originally called Bobrowski Textile, in June 2024 after nearly 20 years of the store, at 1306 St. Clair Avenue West, sitting dormant.
Corso Italia’s B.Textile is an irreplaceable slice of history in itself. A refuge for the creative soul’s gossamer-wrapped dream. The store hosts a range of fabrics from cotton to wool, to a diverse array of furs. A majority of the fabrics in the store are vintage, handpicked by their grandparents between the 1960s and 1980s.
“My brother and I always wanted to do something with the store because it had so much significance to my family,” said David, referring to the business as his grandparents’ bread and butter.
Ryka and Abraham, the brothers’ grandparents, left Poland for Canada in the 1950’s without knowing the English language or having any sort of formal education. The couple opened up their shop in 1961.
Their grandfather passed away before the brothers were born. Ryka Bobrowski ran the business well into her ‘90s before a fractured hip forced her to close the shop for nearly a decade.
The business was then passed on to the brothers’ father, who struggled to keep the store afloat while juggling his medical practice. With the sudden demise of their father this year, the responsibility for the store fell into the brother’s hands.
David said they threw themselves into their business despite the challenges and limitations they were faced with. In that respect, he and Adam followed in their grandparents’ footsteps.
“Along the same lines, we’ve kind of taken this on from the perspective of not really having a lot of background or formal education in business or textiles and just figuring it out ourselves,” David said.
While the brothers’ method of approach to this business runs parallel to Ryka and Abraham’s, the actual operation of the shop differs substantially.
David said that his grandparents ran the business at a time where people were sewing their own clothes or were bringing textiles to designers to make their own suits. Nowadays, people tend to stop by the store for other reasons.
“It’s now more for people who have a special interest in the hobby, or fashion designers and filmmakers looking for unique patterns for set design,” he said.
Regardless, David noted that there are returning customers.
“Many people in the community would come by and just recount stories of doing business with my grandmother,” he said, “she was a bit of a character.”
Lisa Bobrowski, the brothers’ mother, who assists in running the store, said a woman came in just last week and talked to her about a time when Ryka had sold her a lot of material. “She was here for about two hours just walking through all the material,” she said, “it brought back great memories.”
While David describes B.Textile as a staple in the community, he is unsure of how long it will be feasible to keep the store open as both brothers are currently pursuing careers in the medical field.
“The goal right now is to sell what we have,” said David, noting that they aren’t actively buying more stock. “If possible, creating more an online business would be something of interest, but it is a huge undertaking,” he adds.
Reporter at On The Record
Reporter, On the Record, Fall 2024
