Yanal Dhailieh never imagined that the T-shirt business he started from his mother’s basement could end up becoming an iconic Toronto brand. In fact, he never even planned to work in fashion. He studied biomedical science at the University of Waterloo and landed a sales job at a software company. “This wasn’t really in the plan at all,” says Yanal, looking back on the success of Peace Collective. “It was just something I kind of did as a hobby.”
The idea sparked during a Raptors game. Yanal had created custom T-shirts for him and his friends to wear to the game, thinking nothing of it. But then, when he got to the stadium, people began complimenting his shirt. “As soon as we got out there, a bunch of people started asking, ‘where did you get that?’” he recalls. And that was that; in 2014, he launched an online shop for Peace Collective, selling garments that showed pride for Canada and Toronto.
