When Kealan Sullivan was 22, she never wore the same thing twice. The 69 Vintage owner would throw together an outfit at Value Village, trash it on the town, and toss it in her closet at the end of the night, never to see the flash of a camera again. An undisclosed number of years later, she's cleaning out that closet—and the basement of her beloved Queen West boutique—to indulge the fickle desires of......

Snappy Answers runs every Saturday afternoon. Send your questions, be they tough or trivial, to snappyanswers@torontoist.com. Hey Snappy, My partner and I are about to begin renovation on a house we just bought. We are going to get new floors, a new kitchen, a new bathroom, and new appliances. Although "new" in this situation is good, it means, by definition, that there is old. And a lot of it. We want as little of the......

Miss Rowe Fall/Winter 2008. Photos courtesy of Miss Rowe. Ashley Rowe had nothing to wear. Then 24, she was a big city girl with the big interview at the big Bloor Street store every clothes-lover dreams of calling home: Holt Renfrew. Well, their clothes were just too expensive, and H&M? She loves it. Who doesn’t? But... it’s H&M. So, Miss Rowe designed her own collection and called it just that. "I wanted to make......

If you thrill to the authenticity of a one-of-a-kind vintage find, but could do without the authentic experience of digging through a factory-sized, moldy basement-scented Value Village for hours on end, you’ve probably already discovered Upside Dive Inc. And if not, you’re about to have a moment. Bicycles and biker jackets, desk chairs and secretary dresses, sunburst clocks and butterfly shades... Upside Dive is a purveyor of all things preloved, a one-stop wonder emporium founded......

Heads up on the hands-down coolest things at the Interior Design Show: most of them spring from our own backyard. And literally, too. There is a flourishing trend toward the incorporation of nature in contemporary design—a welcome wandering off from the hard lines and materials often associated with modernism—and local designers are embracing it wholeheartedly. Toronto installation artist Rob Southcott's "United We Stand" (pictured at right) is actually a seat of sorts, a grouping......

While February 14th is reserved for lovers, and February 18th is all about families, February 13th has 'em all beat...tomorrow, Wednesday, is none other than Dead Bra Day! This is a chance for all bearers of boobs to come on out to Secrets From Your Sister (560 Bloor Street West) and: A) Save 20% on all of the boutique's fabulous, well-fitting and long-lasting bras by trading in a "dead" bra for a wicked discount, and;......

Weeks of record-breaking, finger-numbing, Antarctican weather are leaving Torontonians frozen across the city—and someone thinks it's hilarious. Who could be cruel enough to snicker as you stand miserably in a pool of slush, waiting thirty-something minutes for the streetcar that was stopped up by unprecedented snowfall? On February 16, the jerks themselves want to watch, photograph, and videotape you at your frozen-est... inside the Eaton Centre. Frozen, that is, in time. Would you believe the......

Snappy Answers runs every Saturday afternoon. Send your questions, be they tough or trivial, to snappyanswers@torontoist.com. Hello, I am new to the city and am looking for advice on where to find great vintage clothing shopping. Can you please recommend both general areas of town where I might have some luck and, most importantly, specific stores I should check out? As someone on a budget, I'm looking for good deals. Also, I heard something about......

When we think of Disney our minds don't usually jump to wedding dresses, but players in the Canadian bridal industry are hoping you’ll think cartoon princesses when planning your grown-up “special day.” It only makes good marketing sense given that the big, white wedding dream is often one we come up with, or get forced upon us, in childhood. If you manage to keep that (perhaps unrealistic) dream alive, why not be honest about......

Any sweetheart worth his or her weight in Godiva's will tell you that all they really want for Valentine's Day is something from the heart, made by hand. Lovely and true. But did said sweetie specify whose heart? Whose hands? Unromantic as it seems, we believe it's perfectly acceptable to outsource your labours of love. Why spend hours wrestling with hot glue and lace when someone else can do it for you—and better? This......

Shouldn't every mall should include a place to pose against an elegant concrete wall with your favourite magazine or a romantic hidden spot to meet that lawyer you're having an affair with while their spouse shops? The Bayview Village neighbourhood was one of several planned communities that sprang up in North York in the wake of Don Mills. Before unveiling the design for Bayview Village with developer A.W. Farlinger in 1954, planner Eugenio Faludi......

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset. A big-time hero for 2007 is the expansion of Queen West's Made You Look jewelry studio and gallery. in......

Gift cards may make convenient presents for Christmas, but they're a lump of coal for the environment. According to the Consumers' Association of Canada, Canadians will spend $3 billion on gift cards this year, which means a lot of rectangular pieces of plastic will end up in the garbage. Gift cards can be reloaded to extend use, but a person who receives multiple gift cards for a retailer usually keeps only one to reload......

With self-check-in a success at airports around the country, Air Canada is preparing to implement a system that would see passengers check and tag their own luggage. Coming in 2009: who wants to learn how to fly a plane? In spite of fears that we might not be as greedy as last year, yesterday stores were jammed with eager bargain hunters seeking shiny stuff. The crush is expected to continue through the rest of......

Every weekday morning, bright and early, we feature a photo (or two) from a photographer in the Torontoist Flickr Pool. It's our way of giving the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention that they deserve. Eaton Centre Double Exposure 120 Format BY METRIX X......

What to do if you are alone tomorrow, either because you don't celebrate Christmas, or because there's no one around to celebrate with: Spend your day curled up with the almost-human warmth of your laptop, watching the WPIX Yule Log and listening to "Blue Christmas" (the Bright Eyes version), both on endless loops that resemble depression spirals more and more with each whiskey-and-tears cocktail that passes down your throat, which, come to think of......

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Each week, Torontoist shows off the most interesting, creative, and cool submissions to our Torontoist Flickr Pool. We're especially partial to photos that show our city in a new light, highlight a recent event, and remind us why we live here. Join the Flickr pool and show us what you've got. UntitledBY SQUEAKYRAT Ring Of FireBY DOSHA City Hall at NightBY ARIEHSINGER FrostyBY SWILTON 50%BY REBOOTYOURCOMPUTER hibernateBY jasfitz Harbord St., snowBY ANDYSCAMERA miniBY JORDANBOWER Creepy......

That headline is only slightly misleading in order to alert you to Kensington's annual Festival of Lights, celebrating the winter Solstice tomorrow night. But we can assure you that there will be giant puppets and there will be fire, if not necessarily at the same time. Starting at 6:00 p.m, revelers will gather at the corner of Augusta and College and begin a procession down Augusta, east onto Baldwin, down Kensington Avenue, west on......

Photo by karlofun from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. So Christmas is a week from... yesterday? Well, shit. Might be time to get on that gift-buying thing. If you're like us, you can count the number of shopping days left on one hand and the number of presents you've bought on the other—including three bottles of wine, two of which you will be driven to drink yourself after spending a mere ten last-minute minutes in......

A longtime staple of the holiday season is a special visit from jolly old St. Nick to the nearest shopping mall or department store. Kids relish the opportunity to tell Santa that they want the latest hot toy, peace on Earth or an official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model air rifle, while retailers hope these gift lists translate into sales. If the establishment has hired their Santa carefully, kids will not need to......

Are you looking to avoid the obligatory office holiday outing, or perhaps the family singalong? Look no further, because Toronto’s 2007 edition of Santarchy is happening this Saturday. In what has become a yearly tradition for cities around the world, groups of Santas gather to spread a little of ye old Christmas cheer. They may begin the night entertaining shopping families at the local mall, but after the festive bar hop, it's like an......

December is party season, but what if you don't feel like dancing? There's more to holiday dressing than disco-ball metallics and electro-shock hues. Indeed, in today's ever-flashier scene, you're most likely to stand out in a standby—the little black dress. Luckily for you nineties types, local label Common Cloth is a step ahead on the road back to minimalism. For their current fall/winter collection, scissor sisters Melanie Talbot and Kristina Bozzo cut refined, modern......

It's the holiday season, which means that stress is high and we're not always thinking when we spend our money. But this time of year is also a busy season for fraudsters, who love to take advantage of people's holiday forgetfulness. Paying by debit is one of the easiest ways of paying for your goods, but it's the easiest to compromise. We know several people who have had thousands of dollars drained from their......

The holiday shopping season has descended upon the city, along with an early blast of winter. This combination may lead shoppers to unconsciously purchase items to cure their winter blues, even if the calendar shows that fall has a few more weeks to go. Today's ad offers a prescription from Simpsons and Esprit to keep free-spirited souls in an ecstatic mood come February. A trip down to the historic Queen Street department store promised......

Showdown's hot picks for cold season include cropped leather jackets and cute jumper dresses. Photos courtesy of Showdown Vintage. Why Showdown Vintage isn't like Toronto's 1348 other vintage stores: 1. It's not really a store. Staysail Shedd, Mick Jackson and Andrew Pepall launched Showdown as an eBay retailer in April 2006, using their combined years of vintage-picking expertise to sell the coolest of Toronto's castoffs to customers all over the globe. But with a......

With parking at a premium this holiday season, shopping malls see an increase in lazy, self-important jackasses who park in Accessible Parking spaces and abuse legitimate disability permits. The mind boggles at the selfish sense of entitlement this takes, and the Toronto Police Service won't care that you "just had to return a video." The Parking Enforcement Disabled Liason Unit have just entered a month-long enforcement blitz, focusing on those who park illegally in......

The good folks at TiVo have decided that now would be the optimum time to unleash their initially-much-talked-about-but-not-so-much-talked-about-anymore product on Canadians, a mere eight years after its release to the U.S. and U.K. markets. (Way to capitalize on a phenomenon, fellas!) TiVo can be credited––at least according to Canada.com––with "making TV watching less of a laborious task," which is a relative understatement considering how exhausting sitting through commercials can be to the average viewer. Don't......

This weekend, resist the urge to do the same old bar hop and try a more sophisticated means of indulging your party ADD: the art show hop. Okay, so we just invented that term, but the city does have three rad art happenings going on almost simultaneously this Friday, November 30. And we say, why choose? To start your adventure, knock back a whiskey for warmth and head down to the Harbourfront, where the......

Urbanist is a photo series that will look at developments, architecture, trends and activities happening in various cities––including our own––to inspire the urbane urbanist at home to make Toronto a better place. December will bring about the demolition of the building at the southeast corner of Yonge and Bloor to make way for the gargantuan condo development known as One Bloor East. Urbanist is generally supportive of the condo boom since it means more people......