Christina Creative

Claire from LIVIA

To highlight the incoming array of striped designs for spring, we asked the East Van Queen of Stripes herself to self as style inspiration.

Claire is the owner of LIVIA, one of Commercial Drive's beloved cornerstone cafes (just a hop skip away from our shop doors). If you've ever had the delight of interacting with Claire, it's likely you walked away blushing — her warmth and exuberance inevitably contagious.

So how does a full-time business-owner, mother, and active member of her community manage to look so polished and put together, yet effortlessly easygoing? The secret is the Signature Stripe.

Stripes are timeless beyond the ebbs and flows of fashion. They balance classy and casual, they do not belong to any one gender or class, and there is no one right way to do them. We adore the versatility of stripes.

Thanks again Claire for demonstrating how hard-working can look so chic.

Miki from Dachi

Sometimes people ask what the 'Lifestyle' part of our store means. As an independent business in a cultural hub of the city, we are avid cheerleaders of Local Life, and of the bright, business-savvy folks who shape its vibrant hospitality industry right in our backyard.

We asked our friends Miki and Annabelle (next post coming!) to help show off summer wardrobe staples — the kind of 'lifestyle' we are thrilled our pieces help to facilitate.

Miki is a familiar face to many and the kind of person you sweeear must have a double of herself. On any given day, you could catch her at Hastings-Sunrise in the AM setting up the patio at Dachi, her 5-year-old natural wine bar, or at Tall Shadow Bakery, the most recently opened of her business babies. By evening, find Miki back out East in the heart of the Drive at Hanai, her farm-to-table restaurant built around the Hawaiian philosophy it is named after: to adopt and extend ourselves to others as if they are family. And somewhere between all that, we still get the pleasure of catching Miki's buoyant personality making her rounds through our doors for in-and-out shopping and gift pickups.

So staple pieces for people who do everything under the sun? Lightweight jumpers are quintessential go-tos for days beginning in coffee shops and wrapping up on patios with a bottle of wine.

Annabelle from Tall Shadow Bakery

Annabelle is a poster child example of the creative professional Vancouverite. She comes from an industrial design background and uses her problem-solving designer lens to wear a variety of hats. Amongst those hats is managing the recently opened @tallshadowbakery, but you may also catch her at other hospitality joints in the city, working as a professional consultant, or inventing unique and delicious ice cream flavours.

One draw of bakery life for Annabelle is the inherently essential quality of bread: a product deemed such a human necessity, it is exempt from taxes. If we have the option to get essential goods from a team of talented individuals who pour tremendous care into their craft, and we get to have these tiny. personable, life-enriching moments when picking up something as 'basic' as bread because a group of hospitality entrepreneurs are keeping the artful quality of food alive — that's a pretty special process created around loaves of sustenance. 

Christina from Bamboletta Dolls

If you live in East Van, you may not be aware of the magical toy studio living right under our noses. Our most recent community feature is Christina Mattiello, the founder and owner of Bamboletta Dolls.

When Christina discovered Wardolf dolls years ago, it was the philosophy behind their design that sparked her curiosity. The antithesis to the plastered, perpetually-happy idealized beauty widely popular in the world of doll-making. This toy was intentionally created with minimal facial features so that it may represent children fully — when played with, the whole broad range of complex emotions that make us human are potential for exploration.

Upon making her first-ever doll as a gift to her niece, Christina was hooked. She loved the experience of creating and giving this open-ended vessel for imaginative play and soon began making dolls for anyone in her life who wanted one. Then came local markets and opportunely taking advantage of e-commerce platforms to reach international markets. When the demand for Christina's creations grew to an extent where she could no longer keep up with production alone, it dawned on her that expanding her business meant she could provide meaningful work for other creatives and moms like herself. Bamboletta Dolls now employs a team of over 30 women that collaboratively produce a collection of adorable, eclectically colourful and diverse dolls. And staying true to Waldorf tradition, each one is made lovingly by hand from natural materials only.