Barbara Captijn is one of Toronto’s best kept secrets. Like a cross between Sex and the City’s Kim Cattrall and a more sophisticated, leather-trouser wrapped Martha Stewart, she holds the key to an unrivalled insider’s view of Toronto that even long term residents fail to glimpse. Not only is Barbara the city’s premiere personal shopper, she effortlessly mixes her Chanels and Chloés with home-grown Canadian born brands, but she knows the backstreets of the downtown historic Yorkville area better than anyone with a new credit card. “This is the chic area to live and to shop,” she purrs. “I wouldn’t shop anywhere else, darling.” On our winter morning stroll of Yorkville, the gentrified Haight-Ashbury district of Canada if there ever was one, Barbara introduces me to a cast of designers, sales associates and red beret-wearing lovies, who have more style in their pinkie fingers than I could manage to muster from my entire wardrobe. I meet Richard Hitelman of Harry Rosen, home to the President’s Club, the most exclusive place to buy a suit in the whole of Canada; Eleanore Rosenstein of Hugo Nicholson, a smorgasbord boutique of prom queen versus bridezilla gowns, party dresses and toe-curlingly expensive threads; Orly Weinberg of über-hip fashion store Milli; and Linda Corbo of George C, a glamorous Australian designer who looks like she’s walked straight from a chapter of The Devil Wears Prada. It is high-end fashion that one does not normally associate with red and black checked lumberjack shirts, goose-down jackets and dinky pots of sugar-sweet maple syrup. “Toronto is changing,” says style-aficionado Linda. “I’ve lived and worked in Australia and Europe but have never experienced anything like the creativity on offer here – it’s so different from what people expect of Canada. There are fashion shows happening all the time; it’s such an energetic scene.”
With a relatively weak Canadian dollar, Toronto’s boutiques are literally dripping with dresses, bag and heels that shoppers won’t find anywhere else outside North America. It’s also rich pickings for those seeking to unearth new designers before they become mass market.
Davids, attached to the Yorkdale Shopping Centre, showcases a rich vein of luxurious Italian leather throughout its shoe racks, and Avec Plaisir, offering the city’s only personalised lingerie service, is enough to make steam come out of any man’s ears.
Perhaps as a reaction to the flamboyancy of its southerly New York State neighbour, Torontonians have decided to do things their own way. Unlike Saks Fifth Avenue or Harrods, there is no fanfare – it is subtle, discrete and only for those in the know. Yet the Hazelton Lanes area off Bloor Street West – undoubtedly worthy of any Fifth Avenue store or Rodeo Drive star cachet – is enough to give any serious shopaholic nightmares. Barbara, for one, has already decided on the next two dresses she’s going to buy and I definitely feel the need to buy a hat to protect against the winter chill. “Us Torontonians, feel the need to be stylish,” concludes Barbara with a flourish. “Life’s too short not to be.” As for me, I wonder what I’d look like in a red beret?
By Mike MacEacheran - Tourism Toronto - www.tourismtoronto.com
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