{"id":67003,"date":"2023-05-25T08:30:34","date_gmt":"2023-05-25T12:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=67003"},"modified":"2023-05-26T13:06:34","modified_gmt":"2023-05-26T17:06:34","slug":"farewell-to-malabar-torontos-former-costume-emporium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2023\/05\/25\/farewell-to-malabar-torontos-former-costume-emporium\/","title":{"rendered":"Farewell to Malabar, Toronto’s former costume emporium"},"content":{"rendered":"

Malabar Limited, the famed costume emporium<\/a>, closed in March 2022. Although it had been a fixture of downtown Toronto\u2019s cultural landscape for 99 years, it departed without fanfare or media coverage. The three-storey building it had occupied at 14 McCaul Street is currently vacant and for sale, asking price $14,500,000.<\/p>\n

In July 2019, I was granted permission to photograph the interiors behind Malabar\u2019s grimy, inscrutable facade. Many Torontonians will remember visiting its retail and rental<\/a> showrooms located on the ground floor. Private offices, workshops, and storage lofts for hundreds of costumes occupied the second and third floors. Returned costumes were cared for in the basement, and smaller items like hats were stored there.<\/p>\n

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Costume storage in the former showroom, second floor, Malabar Limited, 2019.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

About 30,000 other costumes housed in a separate warehouse on Brock Street had recently been sold to Sarasota Opera Costume Studio in Florida, and were in the process of being shipped out. This huge accumulation of stock was the product of what had been Malabar\u2019s main business since the 1950s. Collaborating with well-known designers, it had produced complete sets of costumes for popular operas and musicals<\/a>, then rented them out to companies mounting productions across North America.<\/p>\n

Harry Mallabar (later spelled with a single “l”) had founded the Toronto branch of his family\u2019s Winnipeg costume business in 1923. Its original location was a narrow storefront at 431 Spadina Avenue. By 1932, it had moved to a two-storey space  at 309\u2013311 King Street West. A fire in February 1956 caused major damage to the King Street building, which may have precipitated the move to 14 McCaul Street in 1957.<\/p>\n

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Gilbert A. Milne: Fire at the Malabar Costume Company, February 5, 1956. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1653, Series 975, File 5741<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The McCaul Street building had, during its first four decades, been the headquarters of the Harold F. Ritchie Company. At the time of his death in 1933, Harold \u201cCarload\u201d Ritchie had built his company into the world\u2019s largest sales agency, marketing food staples, patent medicines, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. Toronto journalist Don Gillmor published a short, engaging biography of Carload Ritchie<\/a> in 2022.<\/p>\n

The architecture of 14 McCaul, its wide Chicago-style windows, pressed metal cornice, wood-panelled offices and grand second-floor showroom, were intended to reflect the commercial prestige its original occupant. However, it was Malabar, under the ownership of master tailor Luigi Speca, that transformed this undistinguished building into a cultural resource known throughout North America.<\/p>\n

All photos  \u00a9 P. MacCallum, 2023 (petermaccallum.com<\/a>) unless otherwise noted.<\/em><\/p>\n

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