Luigi Cocomile (aka Lou Myles) and Frank Stollery Legendary tailors to the stars and Toronto elite

On my fall and winter walks through Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto, I had the rare pleasure of uniting two legends of the city’s tailoring world — Frank Stollery and Lou Myles.

Though they never worked together, their shops stood just blocks apart — Frank’s at the southwest corner of Bloor and Yonge, and Lou’s, in the 1980s, on Avenue Road just north of Bloor. Both helped define what it meant to be well-dressed in Toronto — but each did it in his own way.

Frank Stollery was born in Yorkville in 1879. He quit school in his teens to learn how to cut shirts and ties. By the early 1900s, with a financial nudge from his father, he opened what would become one of Toronto’s most recognizable storefronts. Generations of Torontonians remember Stollery’s as a fixture at Yonge and Bloor — the kind of old-school shop that gave the corner its character.

Lou Myles, on the other hand, was born Luigi Cocomile — the son of a deaf Italian shoemaker trying to raise a family on just $9 a week. He grew up in Little Italy, the same neighborhood I call home today.

Unlike Stollery, Lou didn’t sew. In fact, his wife once admitted,

“Lou was not a tailor — he couldn’t thread a needle.”
“Lou was a stylist… he just had an eye for what would make the right alteration in a suit.”

And that eye served him — and his clients — very well.

Nicknamed the “tailor to the stars,” Lou dressed the likes of Bobby Orr, Muhammad Ali, Frank Sinatra, and Pierre Elliott Trudeau. His slim, modern cuts — often described as “skinny suits” — were ahead of their time, and defined a sharp, confident style that still resonates today.

Lou’s classic tapered suits.

 Stollery’s closed in 2014 after an incredible 114 years in business. The iconic building was controversially demolished, and the corner will soon give way to an 85-storey condo-retail complex — yet another sign of Toronto’s relentless transformation.

Lou Myles brand still operates quietly in Toronto’s west end, catering to a discerning, select clientele.

Frank Stollery died on January 1, 1971, at the age of 91.
Lou Myles died on July 9, 2015, at the age of 87.