Pop-Up Holiday Miracles in Gastown!

With just 11 more days until Christmas, I know everyone’s feeling the pressure. Me? I’ve got only two presents to go so I’m on the home stretch. If you’ve been keeping up with this blog, you’ll know that I only shop locally. So when I stopped by the Local-E pop-up shop in Gastown to see what they had in store, I discovered within the same block that there was The Found and the Freed. So now I get to blog twice! It’s a holiday miracle!

Local-E features ONLY local designers, which is so awesome. There’s lots to see, but I’d say it’s heavier on the women’s side of things. Lots of accessories, apparel, and jewellery. If I was Santa, picks for myself might include the following:

Shibang Textiles Clutch – $70
More colours and sizes available!
Does anyone else think of William Hung from American Idol when you see this name? 

Bianca Barr Design Earrings $58

Bianca Barr Designs Necklace – $88

Baby Hoodie by Superfly Lullabies – $38

Local Grain wooden ornaments – $5

Little Houses coat – $90 (also available in purple, grey, brown, and grey)

Little Houses is an amazing designer line I’d never heard of. This photo doesn’t do the brand justice, so you’ll just have to check them out online or go to Local-E yourself.

Amanda of Mara Gottler showed me a few of the pieces in the collection, a few of which she was sporting herself in-store:

Triple-Pleated top (Black wool gauze) $125
Harem Pant (Black vintage silk crepe) – $175

Two panelled top (Knit jersey with black wool gauze) – $75
Harem Pant (Black vintage silk crepe) – $175

Mara Gottler shirt $125
Bianca Barr Designs necklace $58

Show-stopper outfits! There is much much more to see including show favourites like Jola V. Designs recycled leather bags, and Daub & Design. So check out Local-E before they close doors on Sunday December 18!

The Found and the Freed‘s third pop-up shop in Gastown is on until December 17, 11am-7pm daily. The shop specializes in found vintage objects and antiques similar to what you’d see at Stepback in Kits. Definitely not the items you want to grab and go for that Secret Santa gift you forgot about; more for the wise collector. Some of the cool items I liked:

Continue reading…

local-E Vancouver Designer Pop-Up

The holidays are turning out to be good this year. In addition to all the craft fairs going on around town, the brainchild behind Daub & Design, Lexi Soukoreff, has built an army of local designers and is putting on local-E, a pop-up retail space starting tomorrow until the 18th. According to the website, the designers will be offering jewellery, apparel and leatherwork. I’ll be checking it out and seeing what catches my eye, so I’ll post that later. local-E is yet another reason to avoid the crazy malls this year!

local-E
December 2-18, 11am-7pm
235B Cambie St. & Cordova (Gastown), Vancouver BC
http://localevancouver.wordpress.com
vancouverlocale@gmail.com
Click here for the Facebook Page
Twitter.com/local_E

View Larger Map

Bubble Bean Boutique Tweetup + interview

It’s a very exciting time for fashion here in Vancity. Even if you don’t think we have a fashion scene here, we’re still in hard economic times so basic shopping means doing your math and mapping out your trips to save on gas. Gone are the days of buying at Holt or on Alberni Street for designer names – eBay, etsy, and Value Village are more like it. I recently found out about a new online retailer, Bubble Bean, which actually came before the launch of A.D.F.M. As much as we want to cross the border for those Black Friday deals, we need only shop from the comfort of our computers. Bubble Bean hosted a Tweetup at 1181 last Tuesday where I was able to meet and chat with the head Bubble Bean herself, Maggie Ma.

Me with Maggie Ma wearing Winter Kate

Maggie Ma: So, the whole concept for Bubble Bean is that we match US pricing. So, whatever we have – well, except for J Brand – I’m restricted to have the Canadian pricing – but everything else: Winter Kate that’s by Nicole Richie, and then we have For Love and Lemons that’s worn by lots of celebrities… So everything we have is matching the US pricing so that [customers] don’t have to shop at Shopbop or whatever. They can get the same price and they can get even probably cheaper shipping.

Middle Child Reviews: Yeah, I noticed right now you’re doing free shipping. Anywhere?

MM: Yeah, anywhere.

MCR: And how are you able to do that?

MM: Well there’s a minimum purchase. So for Canada, I believe it’s $100 for free shipping. For US, it’s $150, and then worldwide it’s $250. So it’s not that much. And then, everything we ship has a tracking number. So we’ll be able to track it.

MCR: What’s your background?

MM: I worked in retail for…8 years. So for a long time. I managed a shop in Yaletown before, so it’s a lot of fashion industry stuff, but I didn’t go to school for fashion. I just went to school because, you know, most parents want you to go to school and have that University education to qualify. But I started this boutique because I had a baby, and I just wanted to stay at home with her. I don’t want to go outside and work, but I still want to make money at the same time doing what I love. So that’s why I started Bubble Bean.

MCR: Did you find that your experience working in retail helped you with knowing what brands were out there, and then forming those relationships?

MM: It helped a lot, yeah. At least, I know how to get the wholesaler and how to approach them. Because especially for J Brand and big brands like that, they just don’t give their brands out to anybody to sell. You will have to go meet them, they will have to do an interview with you to say “ok, we will allow you to sell our brand.” So that helped me a lot in terms of getting the brands in.

J Brand 811 red skinnies I have on my wish list…

Continue reading…