Founded in Montreal in 1986 by Maurice Elmaleh and Claude Diwan, Deux par Deux began with an ambitious idea: to create a distinctly Quebec children’s fashion brand at a time when the Canadian market was largely dominated by imports. Its generous “balloon” silhouettes, oversized exclusive prints and imaginative visual universe quickly gave the company a recognizable identity.

Over the following decades, Deux par Deux earned major distinctions in Quebec fashion, attracted international attention and became a pioneer in colourful, oversized children’s outerwear, a category that remains central to the business today.

Since taking the helm in 2018, the founders’ son, Zacharie Elmaleh, has guided the company through a new phase of growth. He led its transition toward direct-to-consumer e-commerce, expanded its digital storytelling and helped turn outerwear and accessories into major business categories, while preserving the exclusive prints, Montreal-designed collections and creative independence that have defined the brand for four decades.

In this conversation with CEOWORLD Magazine, Elmaleh reflects on family-business leadership, digital transformation, international expansion and the responsibility of building the next chapter of a company that many customers first encountered during their own childhoods.

Deux par Deux was founded by your parents in 1986. When you took the helm in 2018, what elements of the brand did you believe had to be protected, and what did you know needed to change?

ZAC:  

When I started getting more involved with the brand in 2018, I felt that the heart and soul of the business had to remain protected. Deux par Deux already had an extraordinary history, a distinctive aesthetic, unique prints, imaginative catalogues, travel-inspired storytelling, and collections that our product and design teams executed with incredible attention to detail. Those elements were part of the DNA of the brand. They were not things I wanted to reinvent.

What needed to evolve was the way we brought that creativity to the market.

Building a serious online business had become unavoidable. Traditional retail had been under pressure for years and many retailers were closing, so we felt it was time to reinvent our business. At first we didn’t realize it was going to completely change the nature of the company. In wholesale, you are primarily presenting and selling a product to a buyer. When you begin addressing families directly, you must explain who you are, what you stand for, why your products are different, and why people should care. Suddenly, branding, positioning, content, customer experience, and storytelling become just as important as distribution.

In a sense, as we grew into that new space, we had to learn to operate not only as a fashion company, but almost as a media company, communicating with our audience every day through photography, video, social media, creators, and editorial content.

I knew my role was not to change the soul of Deux par Deux. It was to market it more effectively, create new distribution channels, and give that soul a much larger stage.

Taking over a successful family business can involve both opportunity and pressure. How did you establish your own leadership identity while respecting the vision and accomplishments of the founders?

That’s still one of the biggest challenges today. When you run a business with your family, and in my case with my mom, you are going to argue. There’s no way around it! We both have strong personalities and our own ways of doing things, and we don’t agree on everything. Honestly, I don’t think we should. If we agreed on everything, one of us wouldn’t be necessary.

What makes it work is that we each have our lane. My mom is the head of design and leads the creative and product teams. She has an incredible understanding of the brand, its history, what makes a collection feel like Deux par Deux. I focus more on e-commerce, sales, tech, operations, distribution and the overall growth of the business. We collaborate constantly but we complement each other. The mature vision and the new vision working together is a really powerful balance when you get it right.

The other big part is the team. We have amazing, talented people who are dedicated to the success of DPD, and I’ve learned that surrounding yourself with smart and capable people you can rely on is the most important part of the job. Delegating is an art and I had to learn it. It’s not easy to let go, especially when you move fast and have a strong opinion on almost everything. But if every decision has to come back to me, then I’m not really leading and I don’t feel like I’m building something that can last over time.

My role is to give the vision, set the standard, challenge people, and then trust my team to execute. That said, I also love getting involved in the little details of the business. I’m super hands-on.

What has e-commerce allowed Deux par Deux to understand about its customers that the traditional wholesale model could not? How has that knowledge influenced product development, marketing, and growth?

E-commerce changed everything. When you sell wholesale, you don’t always get the direct pulse of the market. You receive feedback through the retailer, months later, and you’re just not in the loop. You’re also trusting the retailer to tell your story and create the right customer experience.

The problem is that your message can become diluted. People may love the product without really understanding who you are as a brand.

When you sell directly online, customer behaviour is brutally honest. You immediately see what’s selling, what’s moving slowly, what people are searching for, what regions are responding, which advertisement is working, and which one is doing absolutely nothing.

You can test something and get an answer very quickly. But in e-commerce, you’re also overwhelmed with data. You have to learn how to decode it and extract the answers that actually matter.

Let’s take the school backpacks for example. We launched a small selection of backpacks, saw that there was real interest, and continued building the category. Today, they’re an important part of the business. The same thing happened with outerwear but on a much larger scale. We had always made snowsuits, but by listening closely to our clients and expanding the offering, outerwear became one of the core pillars of Deux par Deux. Today, we have the broadest children’s snowsuit offering in North America. The key was to create different product series while keeping our design signature intact. We brought fashion into the outerwear world at a time when most outdoor brands are very serious and neutral. We keep it fun! This was definitely a gap in the market and we were the perfect brand to fill it.

E-commerce also forced us to become a content machine. We need videos, campaigns, lifestyle photography, product demonstrations, social content, creator partnerships, and new stories constantly. You always have to think about the next newsletter, the next ad, and the next homepage banner. Suddenly, you need a marketing calendar with events, promotions, and a strong brand narrative, and you need to push that voice across every platform you have access to.

And honestly, that space is endless. That’s what makes it so exciting.

Deux par Deux is celebrating its 40th anniversary in an industry known for rapid change and intense competition. What has enabled the brand to remain relevant and independent over four decades?

You don’t survive 40 years by doing the same thing over and over again. You constantly have to reinvent yourself and you need to do it while remaining who you are at your core, which is something I think we do naturally.

Our online growth forced us to define who we were much more clearly. We couldn’t just be a company making nice products. We had to work on becoming a recognizable brand with a strong identity, a point of view, and a story that people could understand.

The expansion into new categories, and especially the growth of outerwear, put us on the map in a way we never could have predicted when the company started. A lot of that growth came from watching what our clients were buying, seeing where the opportunities were, testing products, and then going all in when we saw something working.

There are almost too many growth opportunities today: e-commerce, wholesale, marketplaces, social platforms, physical retail, international markets, distribution. The hard part is not finding opportunities. The hard part is choosing the right ones.

You have to pick your battles and commit. You cannot do everything at the same intensity, even though I’m usually tempted to try. And you certainly cannot stay relevant by being sentimental about how things used to work. You protect the DNA, but you challenge the habits.

Many of today’s customers wore Deux par Deux as children and are now purchasing the brand for their own families. How does this intergenerational relationship influence the way you think about loyalty, innovation, and the emotional value of a brand?

My parents started from absolutely nothing and built this little baby that became what it is today, a brand people remember from their own childhood. That’s huge and I feel very blessed to be able to continue what they started.

And now we have parents who wore Deux par Deux as kids buying it for their own kids.

That nostalgia is incredibly valuable, especially today, because building a brand from zero is extremely difficult. You cannot fake 40 years of history.

But history is not enough. Nostalgia might bring someone back once, but the product still has to be great. Today’s parent still expects quality, comfort, durability, great customer service, and a design that feels relevant now.

So the history gives us an opportunity, but we still have to earn the next purchase.

For me, that’s the exciting part: respecting the memories people already have while creating something new enough that their children will one day feel the same way.

Deux par Deux has a strong creative identity, with exclusive prints and collections designed entirely in Montreal. How do you preserve that distinctive point of view while creating products that can appeal to an international market?

Design is an international language. Fashion has always been a way of expressing personality, and that doesn’t change when you cross a border. So we don’t overthink it. Our team does what it does best: strong colours, unique prints, expressive collections. The line is big enough that we’re not married to one particular style, but the design signature is very recognizable. You know a Deux par Deux piece when you see it.

What international growth does is that it forces you to challenge yourself. When you enter a market where nobody knows you, you can’t coast on 40 years of reputation because it means nothing there yet. You have to earn attention and trust from zero, and that pressure is healthy. The work you do to win internationally ends up making you better at home too.

So we adapt everything around the product, the language, the sizing, the logistics, and the way we communicate in each market. But we never try to adapt the creative soul. The Montreal point of view is exactly what we’re exporting. We know who we are, and I believe that confidence travels.

Children’s fashion requires creativity, but also demands close attention to durability, comfort, practicality, and price. How do you balance those considerations when making product and business decisions?

Quality is everything! Especially if you want to be here for the long run.

We have long-standing relationships with many of our manufacturing partners overseas. Over time, they’ve really become part of our extended business family. You learn how each other works, you build trust, and they understand the level of quality you expect.

When we try a new supplier or launch a new category, we’re careful. We start with a few models and smaller production quantities. We test the construction, the consistency, the communication, and the client response. Then we slowly grow the category together with the supplier.

Confidence has to be earned. You cannot rush that.

And children are probably the most honest product testers in the world. If something is itchy, stiff, uncomfortable, or annoying, they will let you know in about 30 seconds. There’s no diplomacy.

Parents are just as demanding in a different way. They remember the zipper that breaks in January. They remember the coat that doesn’t keep their child warm. They remember whether the garment survived one child, two children, or half a season.

Of course, we also need to be profitable, so we price our products based on our costs and look at the market to make sure we remain competitive. The real added value we bring is our unique design. We never try to win by producing the cheapest possible product. You need the right balance between design, quality, and price.

Sometimes, when we launch a category, the initial margins might be smaller because the quantities are usually low at first. And we’re ok with that. We would rather start carefully, make the product properly, learn, and then build the category. This is the real investment.

We can accept making less margin at the beginning. We cannot accept creating less trust.

Deux par Deux recently launched RELOVE, a resale initiative in partnership with Poshmark. What role do circularity and resale play in the company’s broader strategy, and how do you see consumer expectations around sustainability evolving?

Resale makes so much sense for children’s clothing because kids grow incredibly fast. Sometimes the child is finished with the garment, but the garment is nowhere near finished.

We originally created a more closed resale marketplace for our clients, but it was limited. A marketplace needs enough buyers and sellers to create real activity. Without that liquidity, even a good idea can feel empty.

That’s why Poshmark made sense. It gave our clients access to a much larger community and made it easier for a Deux par Deux product to find its next family.

For me, RELOVE is not just a nice sustainability story. It says something important about the quality of the product. You can only resell clothing if it still has value after the first child has worn it.

The most sustainable garment is often the one that doesn’t die after one child.

Sustainability also influences the way we manufacture. Whenever possible, we use materials such as organic cotton and recycled polyester. Those choices usually cost more, but they reflect who we’ve chosen to be as a brand.

I also think consumers are much more aware now. They don’t just want to hear broad statements about sustainability. They want proof. What is the product made from? How long will it last? Can it be reused? Can it be resold? Is the company actually making better choices, or is it simply using the right words?

Nobody is perfect, and I don’t think brands should pretend to be. The important thing is to keep making more responsible decisions and build them into the actual business. If that also becomes a valuable marketing story, great, but the action has to come first.

As CEO, how would you describe your leadership philosophy? What have you learned about building a team that can honour an established brand while remaining willing to challenge familiar ways of working?

I’m intense. I move fast, I see opportunities everywhere, and I usually have more ideas than there are hours in the day. My team would probably confirm this very quickly, haha. Honestly, I thrive in chaos. Some people need everything calm and structured to perform, I’m the opposite. When there are 5 things happening at once and a deadline on top, that’s when I’m at my best! Sometimes I want to launch 10 projects at once and they’re the ones who tell me that we might need to prioritize the most important ones and leave the rest for later. And they’re right. A strong team shouldn’t just execute the leader’s ideas, it should challenge them and make them better.

The “old way versus the new way” is a real thing in a 40-year-old family business. You can’t just walk in with a new tool and say “this is better because it’s newer.” You have to show people what you’re trying to improve and listen to why they work the way they do. And honestly, sometimes the old way wins. Sometimes it’s faster and simpler than a complicated new process that exists just so we can say we’re modern. I can admit when something works.

We’ve also brought AI into the company, for processes, analysis, a bit of everything. To me it’s a game changer. A 40-year-old brand competing with giants can’t work like it’s 1986. But it goes back to the same idea: the tool is only as good as the smart people using it.

My philosophy comes down to hiring smart, capable people, giving them the vision, making them accountable, and letting them run. It’s the best ROI a company can get, by far. If I’m the smartest person in every conversation, I’ve hired badly.

Looking toward the next decade, what do you want Deux par Deux to become, and what legacy would you personally like to leave for the company, the Canadian fashion industry, and the next generation of the Elmaleh family?

I would like Deux par Deux to become a true lifestyle brand. I want us to be more vocal and more present, to bring our voice to another level, whether it’s on social, brand plays, videos, you name it. The product stays at the centre. Without an amazing product, everything else is just noise. But there’s so much room to grow: new categories, key marketplaces, more growth in the US and internationally, and why not a flagship store one day. And because I’m me, I have a hundred other ideas too. Maybe a little adult snowsuit collection. We’ll see!

For the Canadian fashion industry, I’d love our story to show that a family company from Montreal can keep its creative identity and build a serious international business at the same time.

And for the family, my daughter is 6, so she has all the time in the world to decide what she wants to do with her life. Of course, a third generation would be incredibly special, I’d be lying if I said the idea doesn’t make me smile. But I never want the company to feel like an obligation. My job is to build something exciting enough that joining it would be a choice she actually wants to make. And if one day she walks into my office and says “Dad, I have a better idea,” honestly, that would be pretty amazing.

Conclusion 

Forty years after its founding, Deux par Deux remains deeply connected to the creative vision that first distinguished it in Canadian children’s fashion. Its longevity has been supported by an ability to listen closely to families, develop new categories with care and translate a strong Montreal identity for customers well beyond Quebec.

Initiatives such as RELOVE, its resale program developed with Poshmark, also reflect the company’s growing focus on durability, circularity and the lasting value of well-made children’s clothing.

For Zacharie Elmaleh, the next decade holds the possibility of transforming Deux par Deux into a broader lifestyle brand, with greater international reach, new product categories and an even more visible voice. His ambition is grounded in the same qualities that have carried the company across two generations: distinctive design, product quality, entrepreneurial energy and a willingness to keep evolving. Whether or not a third generation eventually joins the family business, the goal is already clear: to build a company compelling enough that its future continues to feel like an opportunity.

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