(Images: Monocle)
Monocle, the magazine-turned-retail operation founded in 2007 by writer and editor Tyler Brûlé, opened a shop at 776 College Street yesterday, adding Toronto to a small but distinguished list of cities that includes London, New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong. Monocle’s stocklist is decidedly eclectic: it carries clothing brands like Orlebar Brown, Sunspel and its own collaborations with Porter and Comme des Garçons alongside boutique furniture, ceramic wine cups and digital radios–sort of a kitsch chic, Drake General Store-ish approach to retail. Monocle hasn’t abandoned its roots in media, though: the retail side will occupy only a scant 238 square feet while a broadcast studio and office dedicated to its magazine and design agency, Winkreative, will fill the rest of the 1,240-square-foot space.
Blame Air Canada, the CBC and Stephen Harper: the rest of the world just isn’t that in to us. The latest Monocle magazine has a ranking of countries by “soft power”—the ability of a country to get what it wants in the world by using its own sense of legitimacy and attractiveness. Canada, ever the wallflower, makes it modestly right in to the middle: of the top 25, Canada is 12th behind such international powerhouses as Finland and Denmark. The ranking is built by looking at a number of indicators of how well a country performs internationally, including things like Olympic performance and media exports, like film and music. So what’s keeping Canada back? According to Monocle, the CBC. 
