When Jaewon Cha and Justine Ste-Marie launched Orso Activewear in March 2024, they did it the hard way.
No flagship. No long-term lease. No track record. Just a container pop-up in the Distillery District, a collection made from recycled fishing nets, and a belief that if they could get people to touch the fabric, they would understand what the brand was trying to do.
“When you start as a new activewear brand in a really competitive market, it’s hard to get people to trust your brand, your fabric, your products when they cannot touch and feel it before they purchase,” Jaewon told 6ix Retail when we first covered the brand in early 2025. That instinct, to put the product in people’s hands before asking them to buy it, became the philosophy that shaped everything that followed.
After the container, the founders signed a one-year lease at Union Station in early 2025, putting Orso inside one of the city’s busiest transit hubs and highest-traffic retail corridors. The location gave them access to a new kind of customer. Commuters. Locals. People who would not necessarily make the trip to the Distillery. But it also put them in direct competition with something they had not fully anticipated.
After UNIQLO opened in the station’s retail corridor, the dynamic shifted. “If you’re not running a food business and you’re a clothing brand, there’s more challenge competing with bigger corporations at Union Station than in the Distillery,” says Jaewon. “That’s why when we decided where to take the brand next, we chose to stay here and focus on this community.”
The Union Station lease closed later in 2025. Little Ghosts Bookstore, which 6ix Retail covered earlier this year, took over the space in partnership with Hopeless Romantic Books.
What the Union Station chapter gave the founders was clarity. Not every location that offers scale offers the right conditions for a brand like Orso to grow. The Distillery had given them a customer who comes looking for something intentional, who wants to know the story behind what they are buying. Union Station gave them volume but not that.
“With the Distillery District and Union Station, they’re both areas where a lot of people pass through,” Justine reflects. “What we learned is that retail for Orso is really about connecting with people, spending time getting to know them so they can get to know us. When we opened this new space, we focused on storytelling and creating a welcoming environment.”
Two years in, Orso has signed its first long-term lease. The brand is now in soft open inside a new micro-retail destination at the Distillery Historic District, housed in a Victorian-era building that dates to 1863 as part of the original Gooderham and Worts Distillery. Toronto Pen Shoppe is among the other incoming tenants. A grand opening is planned for mid-April.
The name Orso, Italian for bear, was chosen carefully. “With the expression ‘mama bear,’ there’s a presence that is very comforting but also very empowered,” Justine explained when we first sat down with the brand. “As a clothing brand for women, we’ve consulted with women in our lives about how to make the best products for them to feel confident, beautiful, and empowered.” That dual quality of warmth and strength runs through everything the brand does, from the way the founders talk about their community to the way they have designed this new space.
The new location is a meaningful step up from anything Orso has operated before. Exposed brick, original plaster walls and heritage architecture replace the container’s compact open-air format. There are fitting rooms for the first time. The founders have invested carefully in the full sensory experience, from scent to visual merchandising, and have introduced a collaboration with a local tea vendor that sits naturally alongside the brand’s wellness positioning.
“Our customers care deeply about wellness in every part of their lives,” Justine notes. “Tea felt like a natural fit. It’s about slowing down and being intentional, which is exactly what Orso stands for.”
Being part of a micro-retail environment, sharing a building with other carefully chosen independent businesses, was central to the appeal. “The customers who visit spaces like this are really looking for something intentional,” Justine adds. “They care about the values behind the businesses, and that’s what connects us with our neighbours here.”
The larger footprint also means something that might seem simple but matters enormously for a young brand: the team can finally work together in the same space. At the container, you could fit one person comfortably. That was the ceiling. “When we have more team members in the space, we’re able to better assist the people who come in and provide a warm, welcoming atmosphere,” Justine explains.
Signing the lease carried its own weight for two founders who had spent two years operating on short-term commitments. “It’s a sign that our brand is getting bigger,” Jaewon admits. “But many things are still a learning process. It brings excitement and new pressure at the same time.”
The sustainability story that has defined Orso since day one is woven into the physical space through hang tags and in-store signage that walk customers through the full supply chain. Discarded fishing nets, collected from coastal communities in Vietnam, India and Indonesia, are cleaned, broken down into recycled nylon pellets and woven into the brand’s signature SeaButter and SeaStorm fabric lines. Producing a single pair of leggings from traditional methods requires roughly 750 litres of water. Orso’s recycled approach cuts that by up to 70 percent. All manufacturing takes place in WRAP-certified factories in Vietnam, with fabrics verified under both the Global Recycled Standard and OEKO-TEX Standard 100. Every order ships carbon-neutral.
The brand has already surpassed 14,500 pounds of ocean waste collected against a target of 26,000 pounds by the end of 2026, in a world where an estimated 640,000 tonnes of fishing gear are abandoned in the oceans every year.
On the product side, the collection has grown steadily. Beyond the core SeaButter and SeaStorm activewear lines, the brand has introduced DreamLounge, a 410 GSM heavyweight fleece made from recycled plastic bottles and cotton. New core colours have recently landed. Pocket shorts and 100% organic cotton loungewear are set to launch ahead of summer.
“In the sustainability world, people are also looking for completely natural fabrics,” Justine points out. “Expanding into organic cotton lets us welcome even more people into the Orso community.”
The ambassador program is also becoming a bigger part of how the brand grows. Rather than paid placements, Orso is focused on finding people who are genuinely part of Toronto’s fitness community and who reach for the product because they believe in it. “Sometimes we’re walking around the city and we see people wearing our clothes,” Justine recalls. “That’s always exciting. We didn’t know what that would feel like before starting the brand.”
Approaching 5,000 followers on Instagram, the brand is building its presence the same way it built its retail footprint: deliberately, without cutting corners.
The Distillery’s year-round calendar was as much a factor in the location decision as the space itself. The founders had watched the Italian Film Festival, the summer programming and the Winter Village from the container and understood what those events meant for a brand built around the idea of slowing down.
“There’s always something happening in the Distillery District,” Justine observes. “People don’t just come to shop. They come to spend time with their family and friends. That slower pace is exactly what Orso is built for.”
With a permanent home now secured, the founders are already thinking beyond Toronto. Online order data has put Montreal and British Columbia on the radar, with Quebec customers tracking as particularly eco-conscious. Within Toronto, Leslieville and Riverside have caught their attention as neighbourhoods well suited to an independent brand with a strong identity.
They are turning two this year. Not every brand makes it that far, and fewer still do it with a long-term lease, an expanding collection, a growing ambassador community, and a genuine sense of who they are and who they are not. The Distillery was not a consolation prize. It was the plan all along — they just needed time to know it.
Orso is currently in soft open at the Distillery Historic District. The micro-retail destination’s grand opening is planned for April. For more information visit orsoactivewear.com.
Dustin Fuhs is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of 6ix Retail, Toronto’s premier source for retail and hospitality industry news. As the former Editor-in-Chief of Retail Insider, Canada’s most-read retail trade publication, Dustin brings over two decades of expertise spanning retail, marketing, entertainment and hospitality sectors. His experience includes roles with industry giants such as The Walt Disney Company, The Hockey Hall of Fame, The Canadian Opera Company, Starbucks Canada and Blockbuster.
Recognized as a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert in 2024, 2025 and 2026, Dustin delivers insider perspectives on Toronto’s evolving retail landscape, from emerging brands to established players reshaping the city’s commercial districts.