Design & Decor Blog

For years, Anthropologie’s been at the top of my list of “American stores that should open Canadian locations”. It’s nice to know that someone’s been paying attention to my listmaking.

Scheduled for a grand opening on April 22, Anthropologie’s first Canadian storefront — at the new Shops At Don Mills outdoor shopping centre in Toronto (which my friend Janine Falcon likens to The Grove in L.A.!) — is generating not so much a buzz, as it is a deafening drone. I mean, it’s impossible to overstate how big of a deal this is. Whereas we used to only be able to order “small, gorgeous things” from Anthropologie’s website (glamorous knobs and cabinet hardware, sweet stitched monogram table linens…), we now have full access to big, yummy lighting, rugs and furniture that we’ve drooled over in each issue of the Anthropologie catalogue, but couldn’t order due to shipping restrictions. 

There’s no sneak peek at the store interior itself (the image at top is from one of Anthropologie’s 121 already-existing U.S. locations), but my peeps at Anthropologie H.Q. say the 8,000 square foot store will have “a rustic modern feel, realized with reclaimed materials and work by artists and artisans, such as surfaces hand-crafted from plaster, paper and fabric”.

In this gorge shell, Anthropologie’s famed visual merchandisers (they’ve actually hired a full-time TEAM of visual merchandisers!) will be crafting creative and innovative window and store displays “that possess a sense of surprise and discovery.” Their theme for the store launch?  Bees!  ”The store’s bee-themed windows will reflect in abstract ways upon their role in our world. Bee-related iconography like hives and honeycombs will be recreated with unexpected materials and whimsy.” For a store that’s generating so much buzz, it’s hard to imagine anything more appropriate.  

Anthropologie, Shops At Don Mills, 1090 Don Mills Rd., Toronto

 

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Images courtesy of Anthropologie