swansongtoo

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/small-business/article-fast-growing-pantyhose-brand-sheertex-moves-to-old-montreal-hosiery/ Fast-growing pantyhose brand Sheertex moves to old Montreal hosiery factory BERTRAND MAROTTE SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL PUBLISHED JANUARY 19, 2020UPDATED JANUARY 17, 2020 FOR SUBSCRIBERS COMMENTS SHARE Open this photo in gallery Katherine Homuth, founder and CEO of Sheertex, a textile company that makes pantyhouse unbreakable by human hands, poses at the company's Montreal office on Dec. 20, 2019. CHRISTINNE MUSCHI/THE GLOBE AND MAIL Less than a year after launch, an innovative direct-to-consumer pantyhose brand that had outgrown its modest production facility in Ontario cottage country moved to Montreal’s venerable garment sector to tap into the resources and growth opportunities available there. Katherine Homuth, the founder and chief executive officer of Sheertex (formerly called Sheerly Genius), shipped the company’s first pair of pantyhose – billed as indestructible and rip-proof – in February, 2019, from Bracebridge, Ont. Total number of employees: 25. Today, Ms. Homuth oversees production of a broad range of pantyhose and related products at a 115,000-square-foot Montreal factory employing about 200 people. “I don’t think that in our wildest dreams we’d be at 200 employees within 11 months,” 29-year-old Ms. Homuth said on a recent tour of the facility, located in a working-class neighbourhood called Little Maghreb. “I thought we’d be at 50 employees by now.” At the same time, Sheertex is helping rejuvenate the city’s textile sector, which was hit hard by the rise of low-cost competition, new technology and the slashing of tariffs on products from abroad. Coincidentally, the new digs are located in a former pantyhose-manufacturing plant where mass-market brands Secret and Silks were once made. Open this photo in gallery Employees sew the pantyhose's legs together in the production area of the Sheertex facility in Montreal. CHRISTINNE MUSCHI/THE GLOBE AND MAIL The 1950s-era building offers lots of room to grow. On the ground floor, refurbished Italian-made knitting machines pump out the tube-shaped leggings. Dozens more machines wait in the wings, ready to join the production flow as the company expands. Sewing is done in an adjoining space. The fibre used is so strong that it broke the machines in initial testing and they had to be retrofitted to accommodate the tough fabric, the company says. Before the move, Ms. Homuth found herself flying to Montreal twice a week with suitcases filled with product that required finishing and dyeing processes not available in her neck of the woods. Clearly, Sheertex was outgrowing Muskoka. The skilled-labour pool was small, and technical advisers had to be regularly brought in from Montreal. “We were hitting a wall,” Ms. Homuth recalls. Montreal’s once-thriving textile and apparel industries have experienced significant decline over the past 30 years, but a robust network of expertise and infrastructure remains in place. The pull of Montreal eventually became too strong to resist for Ms. Homuth and her team. Open this photo in gallery The facility's vintage machines are connected to software that provides real-time production data. CHRISTINNE MUSCHI/THE GLOBE AND MAIL Since last September, Sheertex has been doing just about everything out of its leased facility in Little Maghreb: design, marketing, in-house photo shoots, web design, R&D, production and shipping. The company bills its product as “the world’s only unbreakable-in-human-hands pantyhose,” made with the same polymers found in ballistic materials but still maintaining its sheerness and light weight. “There is no better place in North America to be for what we’re doing than Montreal,” said Ms. Homuth. Former hosiery workers who had been laid off were hired on. Suppliers got a bump in business. Alexander Carruthers, an urban planner and founder of a group promoting local manufacturing in Montreal, says there are encouraging signs of a return to the old industrial spaces on the part of a new generation of technologically savvy entrepreneurs. “The infrastructure to some extent still exists in Montreal, and the apparel sector seems to be a resilient corner,” he said. Open this photo in gallery Ms. Hormuth's plans include increasing the company's headcount to 600 by the end of the year. CHRISTINNE MUSCHI/CHRISTINNE MUSCHI/THE GLOBE AND Ms. Homuth, a serial entrepreneur whose successful past ventures include e-commerce platform ShopLocket, is putting a tech twist on the traditional manufacturing methods of the hosiery business. The vintage knitting machines are being connected to a software program that provides real-time data on the entire production process. Sheertex’s direct-to-consumer sales model also makes efficient use of customer feedback on social media. Sophisticated data analysis is used to track every step of the manufacturing process, from order-taking to shipping. That helps cut down on wasteful inventory buildup by allowing for fast turnaround times based on customer input, said Ms. Homuth. “We think one of our superpowers is how fast our team can iterate.” Open this photo in gallery A package of Sheertex pantyhose, ready for shipment. CHRISTINNE MUSCHI/CHRISTINNE MUSCHI/THE GLOBE AND The company is preparing to launch its first non-hosiery product in the spring – a knit shoe that uses the same proprietary technology behind the unbreakable pantyhose. Sheertex fans followed the creation of the prototype on social media and provided feedback as the team travelled to Italy for final design sessions. “They really heavily rely on social media as well as word-of-mouth marketing,” says Jenna Jacobson, assistant professor in the Ted Rogers School of Retail Management at Ryerson University. “This is certainly a higher cost [prices range from US$59 to $99] than regular stockings. Not everyone is going to be interested or able to pay this high price tag. But if it’s viewed as an investment, it will be seen as worth it. “For the company, the challenge is really getting the awareness out there.” So far, Sheertex has raised $14-million in a Series A round of financing, says Ms. Homuth. Plans call for the employee count to rise to about 600 by the end of this year, she said. There is room for even greater expansion, she adds. “We’re not trying to be another brand in a big market. We want to replace the entire technology of hosiery production.”

From above.

Birds eye view.

Admittedly the thing looks tacky ... if you want a sign on the side make it classy and lit up.

C'est un Petro Canada tu t’attends à quoi un Da Vinci ?

This one is of modest height mais je crois que l'immeuble s'imposera quand même dans son milieux.

Parce qu'il y a un boom immobilier dans le quartier est ce que çà veut dire qu'il y a besoin d'un école ? Si la majorité des gens qui habite le coin sont, par exemple, des singles mid 20s pas d'enfants y t a'il besoins d’écoles ? Me semble qu'on entends de plus en plus de call pour des écoles simplement parce qu'un secteur est soudainement hot.

Don’t know what’s happening here but this place which has been around since I can remember from at least mid 80s is no more. Le (les?) commerces à droite sur Ste Catherine sont aussi fermés. Sign in the windows say thanks for your interest but premises are rented.

Ce qui était Via Crescent back in the day est maintenant une maison de thé japonaise. Très busy vers 14h aujourd’hui.

Pendent ce temps le gar qui essaie de répondre a ça clientèle et faire de l'argent doit faire avec une loi sur les heures d'ouverture qui est longuement passée de date ... https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/mile-end-record-stores-facing-steep-fines-because-they-stay-open-late Mile End record stores facing steep fines for staying open late One owner says they feel targeted: 'They seem intent on fining the businesses an amount none of us can actually pay." T'CHA DUNLEVY, MONTREAL GAZETTE Updated: December 11, 2019 Jordan Robson Cramer at his Phonopolis record store in Montreal's Mile End. JOHN MAHONEY / MONTREAL GAZETTE SHAREADJUSTCOMMENTPRINT The inspector showed up on Record Store Day, of all days. Several Mile End record shops were celebrating their unlikely survival along with the rest of the world on Saturday, April 13, when a little past 5 p.m. they got a not-so-friendly visit from Quebec’s Ministère de l’économie et de l’innovation. Shop owners were informed they’re not allowed to be open past 5 p.m. on weekends, and issued a warning. Eight months later, those warnings have turned into hefty fines they say threaten their livelihood. Jordan Robson Cramer began working at Phonopolis — then on Parc Ave., now on Bernard St. — in 2007, and took over from the former owner in 2015. This is the first time he has ever heard of the regulation, which he considers unfair and unreasonable. STORY CONTINUES BELOW “This came as a big surprise to us.” Nonetheless, he has done his best to comply. “We changed the listed hours on our website. But when 5 p.m. rolls around, there are often a lot of people in the store. We’re not in a position to be able to kick everyone out; we can’t close that early on weekends. Sometimes we do one-third of the day’s sales in that 5 to 8 p.m. window. “We won’t survive (if we close earlier), with the amount of taxes we’re paying. We have to open when there are people in the store.” “It feels like harassment, like the little guys against the big guys,” Sonorama’s Edouardo Cabral says. JOHN MAHONEY / MONTREAL GAZETTE Quebec law stipulates that all commercial establishments aside from pharmacies and grocery stores can open only between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekends. Fines range from a minimum of $1,500 for a first offence to $3,000 and up for repeat offences. But there are several exceptions, some of which Robson Cramer believes should apply to independent record stores. Shops in a tourist area, book stores and shops selling artisanal products or antiques are all allowed to remain open later. “It could be argued we sell antiques, because we have a lot of used merchandise,” he said. “We also sell works of art and locally made music zines and posters.” Robson Cramer thinks the biggest case can be made for Mile End as a tourist zone, with the busloads of visitors shipped in to the neighbourhood to visit St-Viateur Bagel, grab a coffee at Café Olimpico or Club Social and try the special at Wilensky’s. “How is Mile End not a tourist zone?” he asked. “We see tourists or out-of-town tour groups every day, and try to appeal to them as much as possible. “Mile end is presented as being an artistic and trendy neighbourhood by government officials and within Tourism Montreal’s own website.” Phonopolis received two fines recently, totalling nearly $3,000, as did nearby shops Sonorama and La Rama. Another store, La fin du vinyle, on St-Laurent Blvd., received the same warning in April but has yet to be fined. “I’m not sure why or how this whole thing started,” Robson Cramer said. “They seem intent on fining the businesses an amount none of us can actually pay, and I think that might be the point. It feels like a targeted attack.” Sonorama owner Edouardo Cabral agrees. He has owned record shops in Montreal for 35 years, and never been told he had to close early. “Being fined $2,500 is enormous for a little store,” Cabral said. “For me, it’s like going two or three months with no salary. I don’t want to be paranoid, but it’s as if they’re doing this on purpose, to target record stores on Bernard so that we close down. “It feels like harassment, like the little guys against the big guys.” Both owners have filed not-guilty pleas. According to the Ministère de l’économie et de l’innovation, the record stores are not exempt from the law and are not situated in a tourist area. “A record shop is considered a retail store and therefore must conform to the law and the regulation,” the Ministère told the Gazette in a statement. The city of Montreal says its hands are tied since the fines were issued provincially, but that it is working on a solution. “We are more than willing to support our local businesses and we can grant specific exemptions, if the businesses ask us to do so,” read a statement from Projet Montréal. “Currently the city is working on a framework for the night opening hours of businesses, under the powers which were granted to us by obtaining our status as a metropolis.” In the meantime, Robson Cramer, Cabral and their fellow record store owners are left in a potentially very expensive limbo.

Archtectural tar and feathering. This building deserves more respect.

«On ne voudrait pas que le boulevard René-Lévesque crée une barrière qui empêche de voir le mont Royal», illustre-t-il. Selon lui, la Ville doit s’assurer de se doter d’«outils réglementaires» afin d’assurer que le développement immobilier montréalais respecte la protection du patrimoine. De toute evidence il ne magasine pas au Costco PSC avec un regard vers le nord.

Throw in legwarmers on a pretty girl and the 80s was one of the best decades to live through. Je crois tu te trompe avec les 70s

This mockup as well as the other from 1913 are breathtaking. Crazy when you compare what was proposed and built back in the day with what we see built today at least in this city (did the equivalent to Devimco exist?). I'd be curious to know what would be considered a comparable project today in terms of scale, design, look, cost, etc.

Short video on la Petite Bourgogne’s past. https://savoir.media/avant-apres/clip/petite-bourgogne