Queen Street Art Galleries

Queen Street West is one of Toronto's trendiest art communities, thriving with a youthful contemporary art scene. On any casual walk through this gallery district, you're bound to find some interesting things to look at. A forewarning in advanced however, everything here is not exactly G-Rated. Just saying. Haha.

C1 Art Space is both a local art gallery and school actually located on Ossington Avenue very close to Jonathan+Olivia. Ossington actually has a number of interesting art spaces and vintage shops to check out. Anyways, C1 is a nice place to find mixed media art type things and such.

*new* gallery is an artist run gallery that offers a wide variety of contemporary visual art. It actually originated from Toronto's Distillery District.

This is the Ontario Crafts Council. They help to promote many of Ontario's finest craftspeople.

And this is Paul Petro Contemporary Art. The gallery just finished up a group exhibition entitled "Making Scenes." It explored the ideas of domesticity, the material world, and female consciousness.

StyleGarage. Your contemporary furniture stop.

This is one of the most important places on Queen Street, MoCCA. The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art.

They have free admission for the rest of 2010, so definitely head on down there and check it out!

Below is Chippy's Fish & Chips, one of Toronto's best fish and chip stops, and right next to it is The Paper Place. Your best bet for finding unique Japanese papers. They have an exhibit going on right now entitled "six by eight" where a number of 6x8 artist designed cards can be seen on display. They have all sorts of things going on like origami displays along with various workshops on crafts such as screenprinting and letterpressing.

The Spice Trader & The Olive Pit, specializing in unique and organic spices.

And here we have the Candy Factory Lofts. This building is over a century old and used to be the factory of Ce De Candy Company which produces what in Canada we call Rockets and what they call Smarties in the U.S. It has now been converted into an interesting living space with "real hardwood strip flooring, some exposed brick, mezzanine bedrooms, exposed fir columns and beams, exposed wood ceilings, floating spiral ductwork and granite counters, just to name a few." All this not to mention an incredible location right in the thick of Toronto art galleries.

There are really many many more art spaces and interesting creative retail experiences to enjoy in this art and design district of Toronto.

If you're a contemporary art enthusiast, this is a lovely place to stop by and just take it all in.

Jonathan+Olivia

As far as Toronto shopping goes, Jonathan+Olivia is about as vital to Toronto's fashion retail experience as rice is in a sushi restaurant. But please, really! Before you close this internet browser tab to avoid witnessing any more embarrassing ways to use the English language, do excuse my poor excuse of an analogy, and I'll do my best to minimize your regret.

So this store is right up your alley if you're a Nomad fan, except they have womenswear too. A lot of womanswear, far more than menswear in fact.

Labels, labels, what can you expect here. Soooo many! :) ...stuff from Engineered Garments, A.P.C., Acne, Alexander Wang, Band of Outsiders, Oliver Spencer, CDG, Our Legacy, Surface To Air, Robert Geller, and a few G.H. Bass Weejuns and Red Wings in shop as well.

You can also expect to fine all sorts of lovely fashion magazines like Acne Paper or i-D Magazine, along with an extensive selection of grooming products from Malin+Goetz.

And Topshop. Canada's one and only Topshop boutique. Yes, there's a Topshop boutique in Jonathan + Olivia!! No Topman unfortunately. But you ladies really do have it all. A whole large section of Topshop Limited pieces.

I should also mention that they might have THE friendliest staff in Toronto. Lovely smiling people that want to just have a conversation with you. My mom was complaining about how hot she was in there, and the lady there just started a friendly conversation explaining how it's really cold in the morning but all the sunlight coming through the windows really heats up the place throughout the day. They're so awesome, and approachable!

There's also a sale going on right now! All the beach shorts are $100. A bunch of stuff is 60% off.

Stop by there. Definitely! It's one of my favourite places in the world. Jonathan+Olivia.

upc Boutique

I have honestly been looking for this boutique for so long. upc Boutique. I heard about it on a blog quite a while ago. It was either on The Legends League or Lost In The Willderness.

Either way, I never come to downtown prepared with a map and a list of places I must visit, so I always miss out on some places. Unfortunately upc was one of them, because I think this might seriously be my new favourite Yorkville store.

It's not a large store by any means, and it certainly doesn't carry a large quantity of clothes. Probably no more than 3 or 4 racks of men's clothes. A double portion of womenswear. All this being said, it probably has my favourite stocklist in all of Toronto.

It just has all the really creative and fascinatingly interesting avante-garde stuff available. Not necessarily the gothic drapey labels, but the ones that like to really play around with proportions with drop crotch bottoms, lengthier tops, a lot of asymmetry, and such.

It has your Canadian staple, Philip Sparks, but then it goes onto offer cult favourites like Rad Hourani, Alexandre Herchovitch, Beta Unit, Fifth Avenue Shoe Repair, Chronicles of Never, complexgeometries, and a lot more. Opening Ceremony too!

So definitely stop by upc. They always seem to have stuff on sale, and the people working there are very nice as well.

Hazelton Lanes / TNT

So continuing with my little visit to Yorkville.

This is Hazelton Lanes, one of Yorkville's most prized possessions.

And let's be honest The New Trend pretty much runs this place. It's one of Canada's best retail experiences with an incredibly impressive stocklist to match its reputation.

So there's TNT blu. The only retail space that carries menswear in Hazelton's TNT family.

CDG, Junya Watanabe, 3.1 Phillip Lim, Acne, Gitman Brothers Vintage, Margiela, T by Alexander Wang, and so much more. Seriously, so much more. And then there's womenswear, a lot more womenswear. And then, there's the service. Friendly, down-to-earth service, which kinda makes me like Toronto's shopping experiences a little more than New York's.

But yes, women really do get spoiled here. Two more TNT spaces here are just for the women. TNT Gallery.

And TNT Woman.





So that was Hazelton Lanes. Well, not really. Haha, that was Toronto's TNT experience.

Probably one of Toronto's most important fashion retail experiences. If you're ever stopping by Toronto, make sure to check this place out. You'll definitely love it.

Yorkville / Summer 2010

Like any good trip to downtown, it all begins at the Yorkdale subway station for me. I just find it the easiest way to get into the city.

I've covered this area a few times before (HERE and HERE), mostly visiting urban streetwear boutiques. But there are a couple boutiques i missed last time, one of those being "The Lane."

It's nothing too spectacular, but I guess it's a refreshing experience from the flood of Hugo Boss and Etro clad retail spaces that the Yorkville area is known for.

It has a nice selection of Comme Des Garcons, along with Y-3 shoes and clothing by Yohji Yamamoto. Everything in the store, besides the CDG, was 50% off.

Since it's been a while, I thought I'd also update you with what's been going on in the glorious Holt Renfrew flagship store. It has so many racks through out the entire building with pieces discounted up to 60% off. Balenciaga, Neil Barrett, John Varvatos, Rag & Bone, Commonwealth Utilities, and Warriors of Radness all on sale. I saw Yuketen shoes that I really liked going for $160.

The Chanel set up has the Chinese thing going down. I kinda like the take out inspired purse they have out now. Haha. They have so many more coveted brands on the ladies' stocklist at Holt's. My mom was looking for shoes, and I saw a bunch of Alexander Wang shoes on sale. My personal favourite was on sale for like two-hundred something dollars. I'm really a fan of the studded clogs showing up on all the designer tables. Especially those gold rounded studs, on black or nude leather. Topshop has done a very nice pair as well. You can pick that up at Jonathan + Olivia's if you're in the Toronto area.

All the Ryerson Grad displays are up right now too. There were some I really loved, and I tried to remember their names, but I've forgotten them already. Maybe a few years down the road, I'll remember them when they become famous! Haha.

Around the Yorkville area, there was an auto event going on. A bunch of beautiful Benz's, Porche's, Lambo's, and fixed up beauties lining the closed off streets of Yorkville.









So some more Yorkville coverage coming up. Hazelton Lanes and upc Boutique posts should be arriving this week. Thanks for stopping by. Later.