Biz brothers move in to shirts

[attach]4950[/attach]A trio of brothers have expanded their family business from the restaurant industry to the clothing world.

Filippo, Massimo and Ciro Philobes, who also own La Vecchia Ristorante, recently opened Capo Camicie several blocks north on Yonge Street near Castlefield Avenue.

The boutique, which had its grand opening this summer, specializes in men’s dress shirts and accessories from Italy.

“Everything is made in Italy from the start to the end and we pick the colour and all the fabric,” says Filippo.

The store, he says, is named after an Italian word for shirt and all their dress shirts are hand-selected from Florence, Rome and Torino.

“We’ve always been in the restaurant business but we’ve been travelling in Italy and we’ve always had the idea for the store,” says Filippo, adding that he knows the area well from running the nearby restaurant and believes it is up and coming.

“We’ve been thinking about it for years and finally we had the chance, we had the right location.”

As for the store’s design, he says they chose to layout the store in a way that displays most of their selection so people can easily visualize their options when they walk into the store. He says they aim to be simple, slick and clean. He says they wanted to create a store with a European vibe.

“People can come in and have an espresso with us, they can look around and maybe they don’t buy anything on the same day, but they come back and they feel comfortable and this is the European style,” he says. “People feel comfortable in the place, it’s not like you have to come in and buy something, they come as an experience.”

They are also in the process of adding women’s wear as they’ve had many requests from their female customers.

“We had so many women coming to us buying gifts, so this is why we thought we should have something for them,” he says, adding that they eventually would like to open another location.