The Cook Clothing Company was founded in Toronto in 1920 by Warren K. Cook. He later established an eponymously named high end menswear line in 1935. In 1949 Warren’s son William A. Cook took over the business and officially changed the name of the company to Warren K. Cook Ltd., trademarking a signature label the following year. 

The company produced top-of-the-line suits for menswear shops across the country, but also offered custom work until 1989 when William Cook sold the family business. The new owners were the Hamilton menswear company Coppley that was known for its quality menswear produced under the labels Cambridge and Keithmoor, as well as licensed brands like Ralph Lauren. Coppley continued to produce the Warren K. Cook line, which featured hand set sleeve linings and a signature detail on all Cook jackets – a slightly flared cuff with a single button. This feature that can be seen in films of Oscar Peterson playing the piano in his Cook suits. 

Warren Cook died in 1972, and William Cook died in 2003. Coppley was bought out in 1998 and the Toronto offices for Warren Cook were closed that same year. The new owners of Coppley held the Warren K. Cook trademark until 2009. The trademark was expunged in 2011.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries there were thousands of tailors, milliners, and dressmakers working across Canada. Some had labels that identified the name of their business and location, but most didn’t. A donation that came into the museum a few years ago had a label that identified the merchant tailor’s shop in Galt (Cambridge), and the name of the buyer. A merchant tailor was essentially a men’s wear shop that offered ready-made suits that could be adjusted to the buyer’s measurements.

The shop was owned by William H. Kennedy who was born in Caledonia, Ontario in about 1860. He learned his trade in merchant tailoring at establishments south of the border in Chicago and St. Louis, but by 1900 Kennedy had returned to Canada and set up a merchant tailoring business on Main street in Galt. He retired in 1915 and moved to California in the early 1920s, but returned to Canada in about 1929 and died in 1933.

The wearer of this suit is well known in local history. William Stahlschmidt was born in Germany in 1844 and immigrated to the United States with his family at the age of four.  In 1859 he came to Canada and trained to be a teacher. By 1869 he had become the principal of the Preston public school. He married in 1871, and in 1884 founded W. Stahlschmidt & Co., a business that specialized in making furniture for schools and businesses. In 1889 the company went public and was renamed the Canadian Office and School Furniture Company. Stahlschmidt died in 1929 and that same year the company amalgamated with the Preston furniture company that survived until the 1960s.

Neckwear manufacturer Gentry Inc. began operations in Montreal in 1955. Two years later, Italian-born Rocco Polifroni joined the company, and in 1978 he purchased Gentry Inc. from the original owner. Polifroni’s children have since joined Gentry, keeping it a family-owned business that has grown into a 36,000 sq. ft. facility. 

In 1990, the new NAFTA agreement encouraged the company to branch into the U.S. By 1999 they were offering both their own established Polifroni brand, as well as higher-end Italian-made ties under the Serica brand. In the 2000s, the company expanded their product line to include shirts, sweaters and scarves. 

The company’s products are sold under the brands: Polifroni Milano, BLU by Polifroni, Domenico Franco, Nino Zotti, Serica, Serica Elite, Serica Elite NY, and Enrico Fiori, as well as various private labels for independent stores and chains, including Simon Chang Concepts.