If You're Looking for Me, I'll Be at Yorkdale
Yorkdale Shopping Centre has answered all of my shopping prayers. Within the space of a couple of weeks, a series of new openings now mean the mall is pretty much my go-to. Buh bye Bloor-Yorkville, sayonara Eaton Centre, Queen West and the rest. With giant shiny new locations of my personal style triumvirate — COS, UniQlo and Muji — my future mall rat status is all but guaranteed.
Not only do I love the clothes at COS for their architectural wizardry, but I also love the shopping experience. Every store is furnished with cool contemporary icons from Hay Denmark ready to welcome your shopping companion. The staff are helpful but never in your face. The store is always organized to perfection so you can find exactly what you want (and of course many things you didn't know you had to have).
I also love being in the company of the other COS shoppers. Inevitably browsing next to me will be silver-haired women who are surely university professors or architects and next to them are coteries of young girls speaking various foreign languages. Others know about COS in a way that Canadians don't yet, even though the first Toronto location opened more than a year ago. Name another store where women who are 60 years apart in age can shop for and then wear the same garment. Dare you.
I first found out about Muji from my friend Julie who taught in Japan in the early '90s. She and I share a love of pens and notebooks and organizational gadgets so she preached the gospel of Muji to me long before it hit North America. As a young traveller I went to Paris a couple of times and hit up numerous Muji locations each time, stocking up on pens, markers, notebooks and more. Then it hit NYC and was on my must-visit list for every trip there too. Now we have three in the GTA. This openings coincide with me setting up a home office for my freelance business as well as downsizing our Toronto living quarters. The timing could not be more fortuitous. I have been taking full advantage.
Praise be to Uniqlo. Mr. A and I first discovered it totally by chance in London in about 2007 and we've been hooked since. As you already know, I'm a fan of the Inès de la Fressange capsule collection but there's even more exciting news on the horizon.
On Nov. 11 the Carine Roitfeld collection will be available in Toronto. I am currently embroiled in an inner dialogue as to whether or not I should hightail it to the store. Wants vs Guilts. No decision yet. In the meantime, please enjoy a a few of my favourite looks. UGH. Cool factor is off. the. charts.
