The Telegraph’s Stephanie Plentl came to Toronto recently and fell in love with the city’s healthy stock of vintage boutiques—not the musty ones in Kensington Market (well, aside from Roger D’Souza’s King of Kensington, Flashback and Flashback 2), but the shops that glisten and look as though they could have been curated by Patricia Field (costume designer for Sex and the City). She met V and 69 Vintage’s Kealan Sullivan, House of Vintage’s Dennis Adamidis and Gadabout’s Victoria Dinnick, and found out a few things we didn’t know: Sullivan works with Topshop, Adamidis sends his more fashion-forward pieces to his Shoreditch, London, location and D’Souza supplies Levi’s with vintage denim (even Joe Mimran is a long-time client). Plentl is absolutely gushing throughout her piece and claims that for “true vintage aficionados,” Toronto is the it destination. We think that is pretty terrific, and it probably has a lot to do with, as Adamidis puts it, “Toronto vintage [being] half the price.” Um, we figure the prices are likely to skyrocket after this bit of international press, so stock up on silk bodysuits while you still can. Read the entire story [Telegraph] »
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Introducing: V, Toronto’s latest vintage shop—it sells everything, including the owner’s clothes
Kealan Sullivan is Toronto’s queen of vintage (Image: Irina Luca)
The place: V is a stone’s throw from Trinity Bellwoods Park on Walnut Avenue, and it’s the kind of store we’d hope to find off the 401 when making a pit stop at The Big Apple, lined with trinkets and knick-knacks that would make the Hipster Mermaid jealous. Owner Kealan Sullivan, who brought us neighbouring 69 Vintage and 69 Vintage Collective/Buy the Pound in Bloordale, sets the bar high, offering a carefully selected collection of her most prized high-end finds, tracing back as far as the ’30s, which she won’t sell in her other outposts. If we saw something in the store, it was available for purchase, because everything is for sale, Sullivan says, no matter how small or how decorative, right down to her own outfit (a floor-length embroidered linen short-sleeved coat and silk 1930s nightie). See inside Sullivan’s latest vintage shop in our gallery after the jump.
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69 Vintage Collective brings together second-hand fashion and a sewing studio
69 Vintage Collective stocks well-preserved second-hand fashions (Russell T. Peltonen)
Toronto’s vintage queen, Kealan Sullivan, has expanded on the success of Queen Street’s 69 Vintage and the recently shuttered Buy the Pound with 69 Vintage Collective, a larger space in the rapidly developing Bloorcourt area.
Open since December, the shop carries pay-by-weight second-hand clothing and the fine vintage pieces Sullivan is known for, but there are also rooms on the upper floor, where independent vintage dealers showcase their clothing and accessories on a rotating basis. The basement is home to both a craft market and the Make Den, a sewing and alterations studio run by 69 Vintage manager Irene Stickney, who’s also a member of cycling brigade–design collective The Deadly Nightshades. Stickney will lead a roster of creative sewing classes; on the schedule in March is one inspired by Lady Gaga’s avant-garde style.
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