Kiddies’ Togs Manufacturing Company Ltd.

Kiddies’ Togs Mfg. Co. Ltd. was a longstanding manufacturer of infants’ and children’s clothing. Founded in Montreal in 1939 by Joseph Deeb Bookalam (1888-1945), the company was initially headquartered at 5220 St. Lawrence Boulevard, with a factory at 80 Jean-Talon Street West in operation by the mid-1940s. Kiddies’ Togs was available across Canada in department stores like Simpsons–Sears, Paquet Ltée, Morgan’s and The Hudson’s Bay Company, and specialty childrenswear boutiques.

Bookalam had immigrated to Canada from Hasbaya, Lebanon, as a teenager in 1904. Initially settling in Cobalt, Ontario, he worked at an uncle’s general store that served the local mining community for several years before striking out on his own as a travelling salesman.

Bookalam arrived in Montreal around 1919 and was identified in Lovell’s Business Directory as a manufacturer of women’s apparel.

With his sibling Philip, he ran the Bookalam Brothers dry goods store at 2526 St. Hubert Street from approximately 1923 to 1927. By 1928, Bookalam was proprietor of Eddy’s Whitewear Mfg. Co., which at the time manufactured children’s fashion.

Kiddies’ Togs was a family business, with Bookalam’s four children working for the company. When Bookalam died in the mid-1940s, his son Norman became president. Daughter Georgette’s husband, Terry O’Leary, joined Kiddies’ Togs in 1954 as general manager after working for Morgan’s department store and as a buyer for the Hudson’s Bay Company in Edmonton. Before his death in 1962, O’Leary served on the board of directors for the Infant’s and Children’s Wear Manufacturers Association.

Coat, Kiddies’ Rogs Manufacturing Co. Ltd., 1964. Gift of Pierrette Grégoire, M2005.66.4, McCord Stewart Museum

During the 1950s and 1960s, the company regularly partnered with Dupont of Canada and the Chemstrand Corporation on the utilisation and promotion of new synthetic fibres in Kiddies’ Togs apparel. In 1960, Kiddies’ Togs won a prestigious ‘Judy’ award for its winter outerwear. The company continued to operate through the 1970s and 1980s before closing down around 1990.