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All stories relating to Olympic mittens

The Informer

The Old Normal

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Best and worst moments of 2010

As we look back at 2010, we can’t help bit see a year of tackiness and beauty, of tragedy and banality. Here, we examine two sides of the same ideas, marking the moments we’ll always remember—and the crap we wish we could forget.

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The Goods

Shop Talk

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Opening: Red Canoe brings its Canadiana to Dundas West

Over the past few years, HBC‘s Olympic mittens and the Drake Hotel General Store have helped raise Canadiana from kitsch to cool. We’re not surprised, then, to find the first retail outlet of Red Canoe on one of Toronto’s coolest strips: Dundas West. Founded eight years ago by Sudbury native Dax Wilkinson, Red Canoe revels in northern Ontario vintage. Though they have been compared to what’s found at Roots, Wilkinson’s designs are more emblematic of old-school Sault Ste. Marie than posh Muskoka cottages. The showroom is decorated with vintage trinkets like military trundles and leather-cased cameras.

Much of the store pays homage to Wilkinson’s aviation fetish (the de Havilland logo, Wilkinson says, is the “Harley-Davidson of Canada”): ’40s and ’50s-era photographs of bush planes; black canvas bomber jackets ($150);  sweaters ($90) and T-shirts ($32.50) featuring the Royal Canadian Air Force insignia. RCAF tartan scarves ($30) can pair with preppy merino wool sweaters ($160) or slate-grey wool blazers ($370) for a dashing Pierre Berton look.

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The Informer

From the Print Edition

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50 Reasons to Love Toronto

Clockwise: no. 13 Jeanne Beker, no. 27 Drake, no. 4 Regent park, no. 2 cheese, no. 1 Smitherman, no.8 Royal Conservatory, no. 14 Yannick-Muriel Noah, no. 48 new TTC cars, no. 7 Jewish Lesbian Wiccan Wedding

HOW DID WE DO IT? While the Great Recession battered other cities, Toronto has emerged triumphant—Bay Street is bullish, our real estate market is hot, and the streets are sparkling for this month’s G20. Yes, our success has a lot to do with our stingy financial system, but it’s also because smart, interesting people move here every day, attracted to a city that’s challenging and gritty and exciting and indulgent (we have a restaurant dedicated entirely to grilled cheese sandwiches, Reason No. 2). If Torontonians have one shared flaw, it’s that we’re pathologically reluctant to acknowledge our greatness. Now, more than ever, we have reasons to brag

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The Goods

Shop Talk

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More red mittens, more luxury at The Bay

(Photo by Michael Francis McCarthy)

Among the tidbits The Bay CEO Bonnie Brooks revealed yesterday in a speech to the Ad Women of Toronto was that The Bay is planning to expand The Room, the luxury boutique in the Yonge and Queen flagship, to other locations across Canada. While department-style retailers in the States are opening discount outlets to boost sales, Brooks said that The Bay won’t follow that model, and will instead seek out brands to carry exclusively at the store, like the pricey Halston Heritage line. Other new initiatives includes a customer loyalty program tied into the already existing Bay Rewards program and the reintroduction of the now-iconic red Olympic mittens.

CEO steers The Bay away from U.S.-style outlet model [Canoe]

The Goods

Shop Talk

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The Hudson’s Bay Company fights to keep Olympic energy

Big-time branding: The Bay in downtown Vancouver (Photo by Brian Holsclaw)

Hudson’s Bay Company, the group that owns The Bay, is seeing increased sales and investor interest, and a rebranding of the store’s image, all thanks to some little red mittens. The Bay’s Olympic gear, like the now-ubiquitous mitts emblazoned with a maple leaf and the Olympic rings, have become sought-after collector’s items, with bidding on eBay tripling sale prices from $10 to $30.

The Olympics mania was more manic than HBC CEO Jeff Sherman expected, he told the Globe, with sales of the merch exceeding projections by 50 per cent. The result: more shoppers are familiarizing themselves with the department store (its 400 locations had more traffic during the Vancouver games than they did during Beijing’s) and a higher percentage have reported that they expect to shop at the Bay again. Now that the huge surge in customer traffic has died down, we’ll be keeping an eye on what tricks HBC will play to continue defying the death of department stores. Stay tuned.

HBC tries to build on Olympic momentum [Globe and Mail]
Canadian style so hot, HBC Web site crashes [Toronto Life]

The Goods

Gossipmonger

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HBC not making a penny on Olympic mitten sales

Proceeds from mittens go to Canadian athletes (Photo by Michael Francis McCarthy)

Today’s Olympic Mitten Update comes from Time, which is a little late to the story, considering there are only three days left in the Games. Heck, even Oprah scooped them.

HBC’s CEO, Jeffery Sherman, tells Time that 3.5 million pairs have been sold since they went on sale in October—1.5 million of them were sold this month—and that the company doesn’t make a penny off the sales. Sherman says that the proceeds from the mittens ($12 million so far) go to the Canadian Olympic Committee to fund athletes’ programs. Sherman says he doesn’t regret not getting a piece of the profits and that “we entered this to do the right thing.” Besides, the hype surrounding the accessory has led to increased traffic in the stores and overall sales.

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The Dish

Aprons & Icons

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Oprah gets a chocolate set because she’s Oprah

The chocolate set (Photo from Harpo)

Last week, Oprah managed to hoard a supply of elusive Olympic mittens for her audience. Yesterday, her entire set was made out of Godiva chocolates, and she invited the audience to come up to the stage to eat it at the end of the show.

The set consisted of a grandfather clock, table, books, chess set, fireplace and a vase of flowers (all made of chocolate) and was created with 7,000 Godiva bars and 2,400 truffles over the course of 1,400 hours. There was also a chocolate chandelier made from 1,500 pieces of chocolate.

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The Goods

Shop Talk

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Olympic mittens reach the holy grail: The Oprah Winfrey show

And so we reached the peak of mitten frenzy on Friday afternoon, when Oprah waved her hands adorned in those red mittens that people are surely rioting over by now. The Today Show’s Matt Lauer broke down all the Olympic it items for O via satellite from Vancouver as he gave his pair of mittens away to an excited onlooker. But since it’s all about the US of A, Lauer spent most of the segment shilling the Ralph Lauren Olympic collection (Oprah was wearing a customized polo with her name stitched below the giant logo).

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The Goods

Gossipmonger

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Americans win Olympic mittens by perpetuating Canadian stereotypes

The coveted mittens (Photo by Michael Francis McCarthy)

Today’s Olympic Mitten Update comes in the form of an on-line contest in which readers submit what they know about Canada in an attempt to win a pair. And judging from the entries, most of their knowledge comes from watching Molson Canadian commercials (in fact, one entrant quotes from the “I Am” commercial).

B.C.-based greeting card designer Fiona Richards announced on her company blog that she will give a pair of the coveted item to the person who gives her the best bit of trivia about the host country (no mention of what kind of trivia she’s looking for).

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The Goods

Shop Talk

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Toronto’s supply of Olympic red mittens is almost sold out

The now iconic red mittens are so popular they're selling on eBay (Photo by Duncan Rawlinson)

Both the Yonge and Queen and Yonge and Bloor locations of The Bay are down to the dregs of Vancouver Olympics swag: a few baseball caps, generic Canada T-shirts and pricey sweaters. Not surprisingly, the most popular item of Olympics garb—those cutesy red mittens—is the cheapest, and by December, the first shipment of a million pairs of the $10 mitts, dubbed the it souvenir of the Games, had sold out.

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The Goods

Shop Talk

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HBC’s Olympic mittens are the it item at the Games

HBC's Olympic mittens went from torchbearer uniform to best-seller (Photo by Delaney Turner)

While the ubiquitous red mittens haven’t reached the status of the blue Roots berets everyone wore during the ’98 games (which, in retrospect, were kind of a fashion don’t), the Hudson’s Bay Company’s woolly mitts have become the must-have item for the Vancouver Games.

The Star interviewed a bunch of Torontonians who are praising how the mittens, which are made in China, make them proud to be Canadian. News 1130 is getting people in a frenzy by declaring that last week’s shipment of one million mittens was the last, and once they’re gone, they’re gone. The Vancouver Sun dismissed rumours that the gloves are in short supply (there’s an entire wall of them at The Bay at Fairview Mall and a pile on the second floor at the Yonge and Queen location, for those who are looking). CTV even reports that the mittens’ popularity has already led to counterfeits.

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The Goods

Gossipmonger

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Olympic merchandise naming rights resulting in unsportsmanlike behaviour

The sporty offerings from Aritzia (tank), The Bay (top mitts), Roots (hoodie), Lululemon (bottom mitts) and Birks (cufflinks)

The Winter Games are fast approaching, and VANOC, which oversees Olympic naming rights, isn’t happy with the slew of Olympic-themed merchandise hitting the market—nor are official sponsors, like The Bay and Birks. Such companies as Roots, Lululemon and DSquared2 are offering Canadian-themed wares by carefully avoiding using off-limits logos (like the rings) and words (like “Olympics”), and the vitriol is flying.

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