Suited for Success

One of a Kind

David E. White is all about multi-tasking.

David White shows the art gallery near his tailor shop at his Richmond Street and Queens Avenue store. (MORRIS LAMONT/Sun Media)

The downtown high-end menswear store is also a barbershop, tailor, dry cleaner and and art gallery — yes, an art gallery.
The unusual combination, unusual makes sense to store owner David White.
“There’s the art of tailoring a suit. It’s a natural extension of carrying beautiful art,” he says. “The business is there, the challenge is there.”
The lifelong Londoner has run the store in the city’s downtown for 21 years. It has been at the corner of Richmond Street and Queens Avenue for the last eight.
Growing up in the east end, White said he has always identified with the city’s core.
“This is the heart and soul. This is where people are individuals (and) where everything happens.”
So there’s no other place he’d rather have the store, which originally only sold menswear, he said.
“I don’t think there’s (another) store in Canada that has all these components,” he says.
The city’s core is part of why White says he loves his job.
“I don’t think about it as a job. It’s just my way of life,” he says. “I’m a downtown person, dyed in the wool.”

David White and Josh Fairweather in the men’s clothing portion. (MORRIS LAMONT/Sun Media)

The store is split into two sections, with entrances on Richmond and Queens.
One leads into a room full of high-end jackets, crisp shirts and neatly-folded ties, and then into a two-chair barbershop that does straight-razor shaves.

David White with barber Ken Knisley. (MORRIS LAMONT/Sun Media)

The other door leads to a small, brightly-lit gallery, which opened a month ago and showcases works by Londoners Catherine Simpson and Lynda White, David’s wife.
One of the pieces is on a sliding door that hides the dry cleaning and tailoring areas.
“It’s a little different twist,” David White says.
The store also has a website on which White posts blogs to keep online consumers up to date about upcoming gallery artists and new product lines.

“We can talk to people in the comfort of their surroundings . . . in a language they like to hear,” he says.
The store’s design is a mix of classic and contemporary — an attempt to make it a timeless part of the downtown for the long-term, he says.

“We’re here for the duration. “This is my last resting place.”

Jenni Dunning is a Free Press reporter.

Jenni Dunning
Sun Media