There’s a bit of a shorthand developing here as Kelly and I figure out where we’re getting the things we consider necessary. The phrase “the new” crops up: the godlike Forno Cultura bakery is ‘the new Fratelli‘s’. We still need a new Grotto Del Formaggio–there are cheese shops in the Kensington Market, but I haven’t fallen in love with any of them.
About half a click from our front door on Woodland Drive was a store called Wonderbucks. It had high-end dollar store stuff, a bit of furniture, and a resident cat, Morgan:
So far, the niche formerly filled by Wonderbucks has been filled by HomeSense, Winners, and a franchise dollar store. None of which is as satisfactory.
The new ‘place with a resident cat’ is Brava, a dress store on Queen that stocks the Desigual dresses I fell in love with in Italy. Brava, interestingly, is not the new Angel Vancouver. On the downside, their salespeople are a bit too pushy. On the upside–very much on the upside!–they have beautiful things that fit Kelly. You will die from the adorbs when you see the latest dress.
The wonderful Jackie at Angel, meanwhile, has found another line of gorgeous colorful dresses from Spain. They are called Smash! Wear, a generic enough term that I haven’t been able to search up a store here in Toronto that carries them.
I suppose the obvious lesson here, if I were to draw one, would be that retail opportunities are eminently replaceable when one lunges across the country, whereas one’s wonderful peeps are not. Rest assured, beloved Vancouver friends, you are missed. I probably don’t say this enough.
