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......

In an age of hipster irony and shirts to match, the Joy T-Shirt Project and its slogan, "Wear the World on Your Heart," seem impossibly sincere. But the "we're all connected" paradigm rings true: each shirt features the face of a real person—not Paris or Perez, but Sonya from Toronto or Sabry from Algeria, or one of over a hundred others in the online catalogue—hand-drawn and silk-screened over the wearer's heart. "It's more than just......

This Friday's Steam Whistle Unsigned is already the fourth in a series of independent music showcases at the Roundhouse, but it's the first we're really excited about. Really excited. Check out this lineup: The Carps are the best thing to come out of Scarborough since... er... hmm. Right. Anyway, the punk-soul duo recently opened for MIA at the Kool Haus, and if they're good enough for Maya, they're good enough for you. Opopo sound like......

This weekend, the Ex is once again hosting Toronto's popular Clothing Show, the retail sales event offering "the unique, the unusual, and the handcrafted" to the citizenry. Currently celebrating its 30th anniversary, this event has been taking in greater numbers over the years because of its talented pool of local designers. And though there's an increasing amount of lazily silk-screened American Apparel T-shirts being touted as "alternative" fashion, it's still the best place to get......

While they may not technically be Toronto residents, The Sourkeys still hold a special place in the heart of this city. And really, Waterloo’s just not that far away. Which is why the band’s final Toronto show, this Thursday, September 27, will be an important one to catch. Producing weird, aggressive, yelp-y music since 2001, the band’s track record of one amazing full-length, an awesome split 7" with the (sorely missed) Vermicious Knid, and......

Toronto’s DIY fashionistas, independent designers, eclectic personalities and thrift store scavengers get a chance to flaunt the city’s indie fashion credentials this Wednesday at the Cadillac Lounge. The latest issue of Broken Pencil, dedicated to the aesthetics, culture and history of indie chic (and haircuts!), just arrived in stores. To mark the launch, the arts magazine will be hosting an all out celebration of indie style, including its first ever Indie Style Fashion Contest. Party-goers......

So, last season—sorry, cycle—of Canada's Next Top Model was kinda "meh" compared to the Tyra-shoutin', model-faintin', drag-walkin' original. Host Tricia Helfer seemed to be reprising her other role as a robot Cylon, but one with consistently dwindling batteries, and the season one production values were also a bit low-wattage. The new host CHUM has whisked-in to save the day is ANTM fan favourite and Toronto-bred Jay Manuel, who dashingly wears shirts for promo shots......

Those fans who are lucky enough to be attending the first two Raptors playoff games will be happy to learn that the team is giving away red T-shirts for fans to wear during the game. The official shirts will supposedly read "Let’s Go Red. Let’s Go Raptors." However, a few entrepreneurial fans think that they have a better idea for a T-shirt. These FUVC shirts are just one example of the anti-Vince Carter sentiment that......

Each weekday morning, we pick a recent image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It's our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve! This photo should be reprinted on the front of every newspaper in the country. There should be on 100-foot-high billboards, pamphlets, and t-shirts. It should be burned into our psyche as a galvanizing image in the fight against global......

Toronto is a convention city. Usually we are unaware of the presence of conventioneers unless one happens to be run down by a swarm of out-of-towners carrying identical bags and wearing freebie t-shirts. But this this week brings hoards of delegates to town for Canada Blooms, Canadian Music Week, and the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada Convention. Canada Blooms and CMW are pretty much what you would imagine: A bunch of florists and record......

Judging from today’s ad, a blinded-by-the-light good time was to be had on the east end of the Danforth in the mid-1980s, as long as you weren't wearing a "t-shirt". The quotations around this standard piece of North American apparel makes one wonder how quickly a potential patron would have been tossed for this fashion faux-pas, or if dressier types of non-button-down apparel were OK. The 1950s sci-fi movie light poles look as if they......

No, we didn't make it up. See for yourself. "The mission of the Global Orgasm," the site says, "is to effect change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible surge of human energy." While you might question the science behind this, you have to admire the chutzpah of whoever thought to add another event to the Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa season. Also, they sell t-shirts. Photo by kelly maher from the Torontoist......

When Torontoist hit up perezhilton.com this morning to check for updates on Britney's hoo-ha, we were struck by a sense of familiarity over Perez's new line of merchandise. If you'll remember, we did an interview with the Gossip Gangsta back in September, accompanied by a graphic of Perezzle as a saint that we made. We knew Hilton was a fan—he did ask us to make a version for t-shirts (and to pay for it)—but......

Following-up on this morning’s news of a last-minute deal to save Toronto’s bid for the 2015 World’s Fair, it’s now being reported that Toronto’s bid for Expo 2015 (doesn’t have the same ring as Expo ’86, does it?) is dead in the water. Is this good news? Bad news? Are you indifferent about it? Would this have been a key cog in the revitalization of the waterfront? Was it worth a projected deficit of $700......

Torontoist was hard at work all over Canzine yesterday: showing off t-shirts, hobnobbing with zinesters, ogling posters, crafts and zines, and taking photos. The wind might have scared a few people off initially, but by the mid-afternoon the Gladstone was packed. Somehow, in the midst of pushing Torontoist and selling tees, we managed to get some photos of the whole thing. There are plenty after the fold.......

What everyone has been speculating for months has been made official. Sebastien Grainger and Jesse F. Keeler a.k.a. Death From Above 1979 have called it quits. In a post on the group’s Myspace page, Jesse writes: thank you so much for your support from beginning to end. thanks ache records for giving us that first 325 dollars and thanks last gang for taking us the rest of the way. thanks to everyone who came out......

If the new fall stuff trickling into Urban Outfitters isn't turning your crank, there is an alternative to those hip, quirky t-shirts that you love so much: make your own! Sure, you can get some stencils and spray paint and hope for the best, but that might be a disaster. A better alternative may be to pay a visit to one of the places around town running screenprinting workshops. That way, you can create new......

No, we’re only kidding, we’ll try and not make this a weekly thing (after all, we hate Youtube clogged blogs as much as the rest of you) but after last week’s reminder of SCTV’s brilliance we thought it was well past time to revisit SCTV’s glorious take on early 80’s Yonge Street in Garth and Gord and Fiona and Alice. See! Sam the Record Man! Observe! That store that still sells bongs, posters and......

Value Village is one of the unsung heroes of Toronto's indie arts scene. Now that the Buy the Pound is located in the middle of nowhere, VV is easily one of the best places for penny-saving artists to find vintage clothing. Also, we're pretty sure that a good percentage of independent theatre in the city would be without props if it weren't for VV. So it was only a matter of time that someone decided......

Strange Groupings is holding the Strange Groupings Manifesto book launch tonight at the Embassy (223 Augusta) at 8pm. Strange Groupings is a local duo (Michael McGuffin and James Whyte) who have worked endless hours on their latest project which combines innovative philosophical ideas, screenprinted artworks (see the accompanying photo), and Prosthetic clothing. The Manifesto explains an “entirely new way of viewing the universe...boundaries are obliterated and everything is the same as everything else.” The book......

54east, the half-art, half-BIAish, bus route inspired magazine recently released its Spring 2006 issue. The cover story, points of origin, profiles in a positive, hard working way, successful entrepreneurs whose businesses line the Wexford neighbourhood. The article includes photos of Ian Leventhal's murals of the same business owners. Fortunately, the subscribe button on the 54east website doesn't work, which means you'll have to go out and visit this free-from-gentrification-worry neighbourhood and pick yourself up......

We finally got around to seeing CanStage's anachronistic (and possibly mid-life crisis-induced) production of Hair last night. As the photos in the adverts promise, the cast is young, gorgeous, and sometimes scantily clad. The tagline in the adverts ("Now More Than Ever") is less accurate, however. Hair is very much a product of its time, a reaction to the draft and the Vietnam War, and a celebration of the free-lovin' hippy lifestyle. And while there......

Let’s open with an image. By far our favourite image of film in the past...Ooh, ages, Date Movie’s unique take on Napoleon Dynamite. I can almost hear the two (count ‘em) writers from Scary Movie in the pitching office. “Okay, get this, right. We’ve got a version of Napoleon Dynamite. Now, you know how all the kids are wearing those ‘Vote for Pedro’ t-shirts, right?” (The movie exec nods with recognition, a feign he’s......

Things have heated up over at the St. Clair Pro-ROW site, as the anti-transit group SOS (which is an acronym for Destroy Our City) have caught wind of it. Transit guru James Bow, editor of Transit Toronto, is pushing for calm heads and civil debate. What could be the future of Toronto's streetcars will be on display at the Toronto Hummingbird Centre, 1 Front Street East this Monday, October 24th from noon until 5 p.m.......

The Queen West Art Crawl marks its third birthday this weekend. So much stuff, from open studios to the outdoor art show and sale to "HOUSE CALL: A multi-disciplinary Experiment Where Queen St. W. Invites You Home." Beyond that, Instant Coffee takes over the MOCCA courtyard, and the RBC painting comp hangs indoors. There are also a handful of gallery tours and a guided ROMwalk of Parkdale. Plus, you can go shake hands with......

So you're not TIFFing towards ecstasy, making like conspicuously consuming celebs on Bloor's Mink Mile who spend small fortunes in order to drown out the loneliness of the red carpet (boo hoo). The weekend's stuffed with fashiony goodness that's kinder to the civilian pocketbook, and much more satisfying. Today: Susan Harris Design, queen of urbane recycled clothing, is having an open house at her studio today, and inviting other designer to present their wares: jewellery......

As part of the Campaign for Real Beauty, Dove has launched a terrific new photography exhibit entitled “Beyond Compare,” profiling the beauty of women around the world. This exhibit recently opened at the Toronto Eaton Centre and will run until August 14. During September and October the show will travel to Montreal, Winnipeg and Calgary. This free exhibit was developed when Dove asked 58 female photographers for their interpretation of beauty. Dove’s online gallery includes......

You might remember a few weeks ago when Torontoist posted a Bell Canada Amazing Race-type event in Toronto this summer. Well, there have since been some revisions. Torontoist regrets the error. The post should have read: Rob and Amber types take note: Navigate the Streets runs its annual Amazing Race-style contest on August 13 in Toronto. NTS will provide the opportunity to run around the city like a you-know-what. It's just like on the show,......

It was a strange sight to see. A lineup, outside Jack Astors? A bartender juggling bottles Cocktail-styles outside in a smoking tent? A popular band playing inside? Shocking, yet true. Jack Astors, you say? Why do we care about the opening of a new family joint where the staff sport an obnoxious amount of flare and you're meant to scribble on the paper tablecloth with crayons? Torontoist wasn't sure either. But, Torontoist doesn't often......

Jeune artiste montréalais de 29 ans, Dominique Toutant présente sa Boutique à Toronto jusqu’au 13 février, projet qu’il avait concocté pour la fin de sa maîtrise. Non, non, ce n’est pas une boutique telle quelle qu’il nous propose, mais c’est plutôt une exposition d’art qui critique, avec humour, les « gifts shops » à la sortie des musées. C’est à la Gallerie 1313 sur Queen St. que se situe l’exposition. L’idée, avoue-t-il au journal Internet......