Best classy swap meet

Market at Eugene Choo
3683 Main Street
604-873-8874

There was a time when swap meets conjured up images of overeating, muumuu-wearing women and their chain-smoking, comb-over husbands sitting behind a folding table full of Russian-made CD-Rs, used magazines, and cheap underwear—all sold by the bagful. Mount Pleasant merchant Kildare Curtis is trying to change all that. Curtis has been selling the best in Canadian and international design for more than a decade at his tastemaking shop Eugene Choo, and he’s now decided to expand the operation to include an open market in the store’s large back lot. The hippest swap meet around, Market at Eugene Choo takes place once a month and features everyone from designers and indie businesspeople to artists and musicians, all plying their wares. You might even be able to buy some underwear. Though likely not by the bagful.

Best new indie shopping street

Over the past year, a DIY mecca has tucked itself into the crazed intersection of Fraser Street and Kingsway. A triangular green space (McAuley Park) shields the 600 block of East 15th Avenue from traffic noise. All the stores are indie, and most are captained by creative, relatively young Vancouver arties. Some highlights include the year-old Collage Collage (621 Kingsway), a mod design-forward kids art store offering near-constant workshops; Aion Gallery (637 East 15th Avenue), a film-oriented art-rental biz with two nifty cats slinking around the windows; Spool of Thread (101–649 East 15th Avenue), a sewing lounge with drool-worthy modern and retro fabrics and sewing lessons; and Les Faux Bourgeois (663 East 15th Avenue), a bistro and café that sells the city’s most French croissants, plain and chocolate. With more than a dozen stores on the strip, plus more funky storefronts opening close by, this former East Van snore zone is now on speed—in a good way.

Best place to get all your buttons pressed

Button Button
318 Homer Street
604-687-0067

You know that all is right with the world when there’s still a store out there that sells nothing but buttons. Button Button may sound like a concept out of your granny’s era, but the resurgence of “waste not, want not” has made buttons kinda cool again. During a recent visit, one customer was trying to give new life to a vintage blue Hawaiian shirt with starburst-shaped white buttons. Meanwhile, a young couple was oohing and aahing over a variety of buttons, from ones sporting retro pinup girls to others in the shape of creepy human skulls. Browsing through the drawers and drawers of buttons takes you back to your childhood, when Mom would haul out the family button tin and pick one for sewing onto your overalls—back when you were as cute as a button.

Best places for brides to get their cheongsam on

If you’re in the market for a cheongsam, there are two stores you have to hit in Chinatown. K K Boutique (154 East Pender Street, 604-608-2778) and Ochi (121 East Pender Street, 604-683-3698) are the destinations for Chinese brides looking for the perfect outfit for their wedding tea ceremony. The selection is overwhelming, but family and friends are usually nearby to help the bride decide on a dress. Should she go for the pink brocade with gold blossoms, or a classic red brocade with black dragons? Or should she get one custom-made? For brides who haven’t started their weight-loss boot camp yet, these close-fitting dresses with their thigh-high slits are none too forgiving. But when they fit like a glove, there’s nothing sexier than a cheongsam.

Best way for a girl to spend a whole day on herself

There used to be a time when all you had to do was walk into a salon and you could get all your beauty needs met in one go. But that was before the latest craze, which has seen women say au revoir to the one-stop-shop method and welcome a whole new breed of boutique-style specialty stores. Whether it’s a blow bar for your hair (Blo Dry Bar, various locations), a nail bar for those perfectly manicured hands (pure nail bar, various locations), a brow bar that will have Brooke Shields envious (Bombay Brow Bar, 1056 Mainland Street), or a lash bar for that Jessica Rabbit gaze (Noir Lash Lounge, 3065 Granville Street and 1150 Hamilton Street), Vancouver’s latest trend of customized beauty seems to have filled a void women didn’t even know they had.

Best way to work those panties and bras

The current Miss B.C. beauty queen, Tara Teng, proves that it’s not just about poise and presentation but about charity and creating a better world. Partnering with Nectar Lingerie, Teng started up the Undies for Africa campaign, a program that collects lightly used bras and new undergarments to send to women in Africa, Zambia in particular, where panties and bras are a luxury. Donning these articles of clothing raises women’s social status, thereby reducing their chances of being raped and helping to stop the spread of infectious diseases. For more information or to donate skivvies of your own, visit www.missbc.ca or contact missbc@courageproductions.com.