Queen St. Shopping

Drake Hotel

Bicycle frames line the ceiling of the cafe at the Drake Hotel. Drake lattes are smooth and strong.

uTOpia volume 2

I'm slowly chewing my way through uTOpia volume 2. It includes essays from Christopher Hume, architecture critic for the Toronto Star and Adam Vaughan, formerly of CITY-TV and newly-elected councillor for a downtown ward.

Damian Rogers has an enjoyable article on fashion in Toronto. She starts by describing the vintage shops of Kensington Market, such as Courage My Love. From there In the more upscale Queen West district, shops like Peach Berserk, Comrags, and Fashion Crimes showcase local Toronto talent.

In the online world, local writer Russell Smith has his own website, xxyz.ca, which gives fashion advice to men. If you can sift through the pile of ads, the site has some engaging columns. (Also, just to geek out for a minute, Smith needs to work out the bugs in his content-management software; some of the articles are full of little 
 symbols which indicate unprintable characters.)

I'm surprised Rogers neglects to mention the Fresh Collective, a designer run collective started in 2003 by Laura-Jean "The Knitting Queen." Every two weeks a different designer takes over the front window and you can literally see the jewelry and clothing being made in the back of the shop.