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Smart money would have been on a store opening in Parkdale this fall to clothe the patrons of neighbourhood hotter-than-hot spot Parts and Labour. And here it is, across from the Dollarama at Queen and O’Hara. Read about the boutique after the jump.
(Image: Fraser Abe)
Few would argue that Jeanne Beker isn’t the high priestess of fashion in Canada—the woman is a legend. We’re more familiar with watching Jeanne explore the runways of Paris than the streets of Toronto, so when Post City Magazines published Jeanne’s picks for the top 100 stores in Toronto, we set about dissecting it. We were able to suss out where her daughter’s bought their prom dresses (Betsey Johnson), the store that makes her drool (The Room), where she goes to find out what the cool kids are up to (Propaganda) and her neighbourhood standby (Gee Beauty). Check out the full list here.
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The place: The latest in the city’s string of pop-up shops is Frye, which has taken up residence inside Ron White’s swanky Bloor Street store. It has the biggest selection of the brand’s boots, shoes and bags in the country. Frye was founded in 1863 and is the oldest continuously operating shoe company in the United States. Its boots were worn by soldiers during the Civil War, and Teddy Roosevelt and now by Barack Obama.
They're baaaack! (Image: Fraser Abe)
The place: The 1990s are back, big time. Biggie blasts on Chum FM, Sperrys and Red Wings are cool again, plaid dominates the city’s wardrobe—hell, even Ace of Base is back together. So we weren’t shocked to see that ’90s mainstay Dr. Martens is back in Toronto, too, with its first Canadian retail space at Queen and Spadina. The store is a yellow space reminiscent of the bright stitching synonymous with Docs. Oversized palm chairs are an inviting, if a little surreal, spot to try on the kicks, and for some reason, a piano sits at the register; guests are invited to play. We saved the rendition of Chopsticks for another day.
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Bastian flanked by models sporting his Gant clothing (Image: Fraser Abe)
Last night, the Bloor Street Harry Rosen played host to New York designer Michael Bastian, who was in town launching his collaboration with Gant, unsurprisingly named Gant by Michael Bastian. The menswear collection borrows from Bastian’s fascination with Americana—rugby, polo and lacrosse are obvious influences—and is perfectly timed to the release of True Prep, the follow-up to The Official Preppy Handbook. Rugby shirts abound, along with such prepster elements as chunky-knit sweaters, corduroy pants and collegiate blazers. Prices start at $130 for a knit scarf and run to $798 for a navy peacoat.
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Evian's Issey Miyake bottle and San Pellegrino's Missoni design
We’ve noticed some outrageous designer collaborations lately—Cynthia Rowley‘s patterned Band-Aids (a tin of 20 is $10 U.S.) rank among the more ludicrous while somehow still being covetable—but fashion water bottles are surely the most absurd.
The other week, a bottle of San Pellegrino was delivered to the office, its exterior covered in a patchwork sleeve made from Missoni fabric. What a terrific waste of material, we thought. Apparently created to promote Italian-made products, the bottles that will be sold in stores won’t have the cover; they’ll sport a pretty label instead.
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The interviewer becomes the interviewee: Jeanne Beker at yesterday's preview of Edit
Last week, we wrote about The Bay’s new budget-friendly women’s clothing line, Moon, an assortment of inexpensive basics (a turtleneck is $19) in mostly black and grey. Now, the grande dame of department stores is debuting a small collection of slightly more expensive women’s clothes backed by arguably the most powerful woman in Canadian fashion: Jeanne Beker. We say “backed” because Beker didn’t design the clothes (check them out in our slide show). Instead, she worked with a Montreal manufacturer, selecting styles and fabrics, and suggesting changes to create 25 pieces for women Beker says don’t have time to shop. The name of the line: Edit.
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The unhappiest hipster (Image: Dov Charney)
With Tuesday’s news that pleated pants purveyor American Apparel may have to declare bankruptcy, shares plummeted into penny-stock range, raising questions about flamboyant CEO Dov Charney’s tenure at the company. The Financial Post writes that if a new investor comes in to save AA, the company would “almost certainly” push Charney out. If Charney is forced out, the Post theorizes “investors and observers would lose perhaps the most colourful Canadian chief executive of a public company.”
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The Moon section at the Yonge and Queen Bay
Sibling rivalry is alive and well with Moon, The Bay’s new collaboration with a fashionable Mimran. Not Joe Mimran, of Joe Fresh, or his wife Kimberley Newport-Mimran, of Pink Tartan; this mass-market women’s line is by Joe’s older brother Saul, president of the Mimran Group. Despite the brotherly connection, Moon didn’t debut with the same cachet that Joe Fresh has built up—at the launch party in a Liberty Village loft space on Thursday, the crowd was subdued and sparse, unlike the typical Joe Fresh show.
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Ladies and gentlemen, the time has come. The company that brought umlauts to America and made an L-shaped piece of metal replace an entire toolbox has released its annual catalogue. We got ours at Union Station, where a team of yellow polo–clad Poäng elves was handing out catalogues to commuters. While we saw prices rise last year, things are cheaper in 2011—so as far as we’re concerned, the recession is over, according to IKEA. Billy bookcases for everyone!
A comparison of the 2011 catalogue to the 2010 edition, after the jump.
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If Joan Holloway shopped at Hot Topic, this is what she'd buy
Most parents won’t have heard of Hot Topic, that is, unless they went through a heavy-black-eyeliner phase in the late ’90s. The American clothing chain, which catered to teens who took up Wicca after watching The Craft, opened its first two Canadian stores today—on Friday the 13th, of course—one at Scarborough Town Centre and the other at Square One Shopping Cente. A third store is set to open at Maple View Shopping Centre in October.
Like Bluenotes run by high school goths and ravers, Hot Topic was previously the go-to place for massively baggy pants with chains and buckles, straitjacket coats and whatever this is but now focuses more on officially licensed pop culture clothing from franchises like True Blood, Twilight and Hello Kitty. (The company launched Perez Hilton’s ill-fated clothing line two years ago.) On the bright side, they’re also selling Scott Pilgrim vs. the World merch (shameless plug: play our Scott Pilgrim drinking game). Disturbed is set to play at the Scarborough Town Centre store on Aug. 25—hopefully it’ll turn out better than Hilton’s in-store appearance in Tinsel Town.
The great retail faceoff
Back in February, Shoppers Drug Mart announced that it would expand its food offerings. Now, in an attempt to shake Shoppers’ stranglehold on pharmacy sales, Loblaw has opened its first small-format pharmacy in Mississauga.
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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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Aldo clogs (Image: Aldo.com)
Montreal shoe company Aldo, that Canadian mall staple, is expanding into the States by teaming up with JC Penney to offer a line of discount footwear under the name Call It Spring. Aimed at 15- to 30-year-olds, the line will offer men’s and women’s shoes and bags from $30 to $70. The plan is to open 100 stores within existing JC Penney locations by next spring, with 500 more to follow by fall 2011. JC Penney is using the deal to attempt to differentiate itself from such department store rivals as Macy’s and Kohl’s. Cue the Canadian invasion.
The space was designed by Yabu Pushelberg (Image: Avenue Road)
The place: For the Avenue Road team, 415 Eastern Avenue was a worthy fixer-upper. The store’s previous showroom—a go-to spot for contemporary designer furniture—was in the area on Booth Street but was too small to properly display all the lines it carried. The new three-level space was formerly a Consumers Gas Company warehouse and most recently housed the printing facilities of the World Journal, a Chinese-language daily. After a year and a half of renovations (it opened in June), the soaring ceilings, concrete floors and painted brick are a tribute to its history.
The stuff: All the mainstays from the previous store are still here: the curving sofas from Yabu Pushelberg, a classic armchair from Brazilian designer Jorge Zalszupin, Piero Lissoni’s glass tables from Italy, along with a new area on the upper floor to use as a gallery or display space for seasonal items—outdoor furniture currently occupies the space.
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