Fashion Jewelry Canada
Q.my family is taking a vacation at the beginning of July to Quebec, and I welcome any and all suggestions for shopping places, sights to see, etc. in Quebec, Montreal, and Toronto. I would especially like to know where to find Cargo, Lush, and other brands that aren't found outside of Canada.
A.This very long shopping info is for Toronto: Cargo is carried by Eatons and the Bay, both of which are easy to find -- there's an Eatons in the Eaton Centre at Yonge and Dundas, and the Bay's on Yonge just south of Queen. The Bay also carries Nicco, which is a new Canadian cosmetics company that's been started as a MAC clone -- it's pretty good, not quite as good as Cargo or MAC, but a bit cheaper. Lush is on Queen West, about 15 to 20 minutes walk from the south end of the Eatons Centre; the shop is just east of Spadina. Just follow your nose -- it smells very strong. Queen West is a very funky and fun area to shop; lots of English imports (Red or Dead, Steve Madden, Westwood) and street-y fashion (Deisel, Betsy Johnson, etc). There are also some Canadian designers in this stretch, too (Comrags and a couple of small label stores) but the best place to go for Canadian designers is College West (little Italy) where there are two small boutiques that carry neat stuff: Red Pegasus is a little tiny place that carries small-scale, design school things, and "Wenches and Rogues" carries some of the bigger name designers. Both of these are on College just west of Bathurst, in an area that's all little coffee bars and funky clubs, but a little less streety than Queen. Note -- although you can walk between Queen West and Little Italy, you're best not to. There's a small but kinda nasty project between Queen and Dundas, just west of Bathurst. If you want to walk to College from Queen walk up Spadina -- which looks like *hell* but is in fact safe (during the day -- night is somewhat dicier). This route will take you through Chinatown, which is interesting in itself -- have Vietnamese Pho (noodle soup) for lunch, or buy a couple of meat buns at one of the bakeries. The best place to go for vintage (funky vintage, not designer vintage) is still Kensington Market, although there are some nice stores on Queen West too. But the Market is cheapest and has the greatest density of stores, plus it's home to Courage My Love, one of the best stores in TO -- they have the best funky ethnic costume jewelry/beads/tibetan silvery-thing counter in town, and a choice selection of *very* cool vintage (funky/wearable, not valuable). Kensington Market lies between Dundas and College, west of Spadina -- the vintage stores are all on Kensington, which is the first street west of Spadina. There are lots of bakeries and cheese places and grocery stores in there, too -- it's a European street market (smell and all!). The high-end stuff is up in Yorkville, (which is just north of Bloor between Avenue Road and Yonge Street) and along Bloor itself just west of Yonge -- this is home to Holt Renfrew (our Bloomies) and Prada, Escada, Vuiton (sp?), Giorgio, Versace, Versus, and all the rest. Bloor makes for fun window shopping; Yorkville proper has less high-end stuff, but it's full of tiny lively boutiques, some of which are quite reasonable, some of which are nose-bleed level stuff, all of which are fun. The cheap, bargain-hunter stuff?? Try Holt Renfrew Last Call (I can't *not* mention it) which is the Holts outlet store. It's last years stuff (ie, Summer 1997 is there now) all between 70 and 90% off -- both major designers (Gucci, YSL, Prada, etc) and high end sportswear, like DKNY, Calvin Klein, Anne Klein II, Georgio Armani, etc. They've also got shoes, hats, jewelry and hose, although not too much in the way of bags, since the handbag blowout tends to be a table-clearing brawl season after season, and there's not much left over. You can find some wonderful, wonderful things (I've bought 2 Armani jackets for 130.00 and 180.00 Canadian, respectively) but you have to be willing to dig, you can't be easily bored, and you can't mind a subway ride. The best evidence I can offer you that it's worth the trip is that I met two actresses from one of the big touring musicals shopping there one night -- they had a small run in Toronto before flying to London for the West End opening, and the whole cast had bought their "opening-night bash" clothes at Last Call, rather than waiting til London -- it was cheap enough to warrant the trip. To get there, you have to take the subway (this is Toronto -- the subway's *SAFE*). It's on Steeles Avenue (*way* up in the 'burbs); to get there on the TTC take the Northbound Yonge St. line to Finch Station (the last stop), then take the Steeles Avenue West bus -- the bus will go north on Yonge to Steeles, then turn left -- and Last Call is at the third bus stop on Steeles (just behind the Harveys, right next to the Funeral Chapel...). This whole process takes about 45 minutes from Yonge and Queen. They're open until 9 pm every weekday. The other discount place is Winners, which is much cheaper but also much more hit-and-miss (think, TJMAXX). Winners tends to be *more* expensive than Last Call for the high-end stuff, but their prices on things like Calvin Klein jeans, Deisel, Dex Bros, Free People, Necessary Objects, and other such are quite good, and often *very* good. There's a small one (but not too small) on Spadina at King St. (in the garment district), just about 7 minutes South of Queen West. If you're in the neighborhood, check it out. There's a really, really big one at Bathurst and Lawrence; if you love the one at King and Spadina, you might want to go out there -- take the subway (the University line) to Lawrence West Station and then take the bus *East* along Lawrence, to Bathurst. These guys are also open till 9 every weekday. One final suggestion -- there's a little tiny consigment store called L'Elegante in Yorkville, on the second street north of Bloor, just opposite the Movenpick. They have some nice stuff, although you've got to be picky (lots of high-end but out of date or just *odd* things) and again, you have to dig. But I found a Vivian Westwood Red Label jacket there for 190.00 last weekend...
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