Toronto luxury retailers are reviving in-store shopping

Fashion clubhouse

To build an audience for her boutique Absolutely Fabrics, Kaelen Haworth is going back to basics in almost everything except what’s hanging on her racks

A year after launching her idiosyncratic store Absolutely Fabrics, stylist and former fashion designer Kaelen Haworth is sitting on the second floor of its lofty space on Toronto’s Queen Street West. With its oversized factory windows overlooking the eternally gritty street, it’s where the company’s product visuals and campaign images are photographed. It’s also where, this past spring, Haworth and a cadre of tastemakers toasted Absolutely Fabrics’ launch of the New York-based brand Christopher John Rogers, an exuberant label worn by actors Sarah Jessica Parker, Viola Davis and Tracee Ellis Ross.

“I’ve been a big fan of his since the beginning,” Haworth says of why introducing local customers to the rising fashion star was important to her. “One of the reasons that his work resonated with me is because it’s singular, which, as a designer in this day and age, is incredibly hard to be. And I like his philosophy of taking up space with your clothing choices.”

Rogers is a designer that marries amplified silhouettes with loud, sumptuous fabrics – pieces that exude an abundance mindset. The CJR vibe can also veer toward what would be described as “ladylike.” It’s an aesthetic that’s very much in contrast to some of the other labels that line Absolutely Fabrics’ well-considered racks and that’s exactly the point.

Surrounded by an eclectic array of furniture, magazines and art objects, Haworth’s zeal for juxtaposing points-of-view is immediately apparent. But while quirky particulars may rule here, there’s also a non-negotiable attention to quality.

Downstairs on the sales floor, tony USM furnishings sit alongside whimsical fare such as a wall sconce crafted by the lighting company Earth Landing Project. These details create an atmosphere that encourages curiosity and revels in details, a purposeful playhouse for fashion savants and those who aspire to be one.

“I noticed there was a massive opportunity,” Haworth says of how moving back to Toronto after closing her eponymous clothing brand in New York became the catalyst for Absolutely Fabrics’ creation. “I like to shop, but in a specific way. I want to explore and take my time.”

Now, she’s nurturing the growth of a space where customers can spy buzzy brands including Collina Strada, Luar, Ottolinger and, most recently, Simone Rocha. The shop also carries emerging lines such as Bettter, a tailoring-centric brand with an upcycling ethos. Haworth’s enthusiasm for it is obvious as she displays the interior label for a natty blazer that reveals the provenance of its materials.

“We’re asking people to invest in brands they might not know about,” Haworth notes, addressing the extensive product knowledge the store’s stylists and salespeople develop. “We go deep on every single designer we carry. And I know most of them personally, so it’s nice to provide that enhanced educational aspect.” Vintage pieces get the same level of attention. “We’re cultivating a customer who’s creating their own archive,” Haworth says, adding that the shop’s rarified vintage selection is a reaction to the profusion of second-hand streetwear available in Toronto.

“There’s so much noise and you need to cut through it,” Haworth says of her recent foray into outdoor advertising, a series of public transit shelter ads that appeared around the city. This kind of in-real-life interaction is integral to Absolutely Fabrics’ philosophy of generating an emotional reaction to its stock. “Sometimes, customers can need someone to hold their hand, so to speak, and talk them through it,” she says of the shopping experience. “I would like to be that person.”

An editor’s eye

A personal shopper can help edit down a cacophony of collections and trends better than any algorithm. Two of Holt Renfrew’s top stylists, Jason Morikawa and Marlo Sutton, discuss how social media and lifestyle shifts dictate how they work with clients today

Morikawa: Being a personal shopper is about getting to know your customer in every way, shape and form – their family, their kids – in order to understand their entire lifestyle as a whole; and then we cater to that lifestyle.

We also pinpoint special events and occasions, making sure to deliver on getting them what they want and will love. I have a wide age range of clients from their 30s to 70s, and each person is looking for something slightly different in the way that they want to work with me.

Every client has different expectations and needs; some require head-to-toe styling, and they want a personal shopper to take control of their wardrobe. Other clients are very savvy. They’re constantly looking at TikTok and Instagram, and they want a stylist to keep them on track with what’s being delivered to the store and make sure that they get their hands on a piece first.

Sutton: You build a huge amount of trust in a relationship with a client. I started here when I was in my 30s – now I’m in my early 50s. My clients have aged with me, and it opens up a whole new category. They went from going to bar mitzvahs to their kids getting married. Now, I’m working with both mothers and daughters.

I have some clients who love to shop, but they will come and see me because I’m here every day, and I’m thinking of them all the time. I learn how they’re going to be wearing clothes and what they want to achieve from a look, and how it’s going to make them feel. Plus, we introduce them to things they wouldn’t necessarily look at if they weren’t working with us.

The biggest success is when somebody gets something that they would never have picked off the rack, they wear it, and then they tell me about all the compliments they received. But sometimes, a client will put something on and I say, “No, I was wrong. That’s not right for you.” It takes them trying it on to see that. And if something needs to be altered to make it perfect for a client, we have our in-house team for alterations; they work miracles.

Morikawa: We also want to see our clients’ style evolve. People get so used to wearing what they do until it almost becomes a uniform. A personal shopper can help them break that mould and push them forward; or we help them through the process of a personal transition such as going from the height of their career to when they retire.

Sutton: What’s been interesting is showing clients how to stay really polished at the office, but not necessarily wearing traditional suiting. And then, explaining how to use those pieces in their casual life. The brilliance of a brand like Smythe, for example, is that you can wear its blazers to go out for dinner, or on the weekend. But you can also wear them to work. We’re explaining how to invest in a piece they can wear to work and to play.

Morikawa: We get to know a client’s closet as well, so we can pull out pieces that we remember selling them so that they can work those items into a current outfit.

Sutton: I like to say a piece is timeless, not classic. It’s about guiding a client toward pieces I know they’ll wear season after season, not something that will have the feeling of, “Oh that’s from that specific collection and now it’s dated.” It doesn’t mean it’s boring – it can still have an edge to it. But it’s a piece that’s going to have longevity.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

Considered space

At Hoi Bo, Sarra Tang is wrapping up a years-long passion project: a meticulously designed and constructed home for her label’s contemporary ethos

To enter the new Hoi Bo boutique on Toronto’s Dundas Street West, you grab an outsized rock that’s affixed to a deep red mahogany door. To leave, you grasp a bronze handle that Hoi Bo founder and designer Sarra Tang cast herself. These types of details found throughout the shop, which opened its doors this summer, abound with personal resonance for Tang, lending the space an ultra-considered mood. The rock comes from the river on a friend’s Quebec property, while the door was crafted by another friend.

“I think a retail environment should be a reflection of the person, or people, who own the store,” Tang says while leading me through its intimate touches such as a Japanese fishing buoy that dangles from the inner door handle; she procured it from a flea market while on a trip to the country 15 years ago.

These rich additions don’t compete with the serene mood of the store’s sightlines. Its stark white walls are an ideal backdrop for Hoi Bo’s beloved bags and clothing line – a range of wardrobe staples made from linen and cotton that come in neutral shades as well as exclamation points of teal and acid green. Just as she thinks through every element of a garment or accessory she designs, Tang considers how her new retail space will be used and symbolize her brand as a whole.

The over six-year-long process of creating the correct ambiance for her customers was made extra arduous by contractor complications, meaning the shop opened well after Tang first purchased the property in 2011 and decided to build out a retail environment beneath a residential one. “I never once said, even to myself, ‘Oh my god, what am I doing,’” she says. “It was always, ‘How am I going get this done?’” Tang’s determination to shepherd her vision through to completion was resolute. “I need to deeply care about something,” she says. “Or else I don’t want to do it. What’s the point? I have to be satisfied by it.”

As she explains where the terracotta tiles found on the store’s steps are from, that ardour is evident. “They’re handmade tiles from a company in Italy that’s been making them since the 1600s,” she says, adding that as people pass through the shop, the tiles’ texture will be smoothed out – a testament to how she foresees the space being marked by time as it becomes enmeshed in its surrounding community.

It’s considered components such as the leather-derived parchment lights that hang in a discreet row near the shop’s fitting rooms that add delectable contrast to the space. Just as we contain multitudes, so does this retail environment. “It can’t be too earthy,” Tang says of the aesthetic balance she’s endeavoured to achieve. “And it can’t be too clean or futuristic. It has to operate in dynamic equilibrium.”

Tang says that it “took a village” to bring the space to fruition, and that working with local construction project management firm Ripple Projects bore out a sense of harmony as well. “If it wasn’t for their guidance, and their introductions to a lot of the people that I ended up working with, it just wouldn’t have become what it became,” she says.

Tang adds that the long venture led to important self-discoveries, too. “I’m confronted with the idea that I have to pick a path for myself within my own company,” she says. “It’s become bigger than me, and me being able to fill all those roles well. Going through the process of this build has taught me how to work well with others and hone my communication skills. In that regard, this whole project has taught me how to be a better designer.”