Even before the seat-belt sign had been switched off, Julie Wu and Fredrik Orling had a pretty good idea which Vancouver neighbourhood had the “it factor” when it came to interior design. They were on that long flight from the U.K., where they’d been living and working, but jet lag didn’t muddle their heads. “We knew already, on the plane, that we wanted to get to Gastown,” Orling says.

In Gastown, that cobblestoned mecca of indie cool, hot restaurants and chic clothing boutiques have been rubbing elbows with some seriously stylish new kids on the block. Behind the century-old faí§ades, incoming interior-décor experts are filling emporiums with covetable home goods you might not find anywhere else in North America. Somehow, it feels like this could only happen in Vancouver’s hippest, historical ’hood.

At 28 Water Street, Orling and Wu recently launched, well, Orling & Wu, a boutique that spills over with so many delectable European lifestyle wares you wonder if there’s anything left across the Atlantic. (Between them, the two have industrial-, interior-, and graphic-design experience well covered.) “We’re not targeting one country,” says Orling, touring the store one recent afternoon. “We’re targeting the entire continent.”

A continent’s bounty looks enticing: handmade velvet cushions from the U.K.’s William Yeoward (from $150); lovely hand-bound brushes for everything from body to, well, toilet (to $127) by 200-year-old Swedish company Iris Hantverk; and Jeanette Farrier’s antique-sari throws (from $580). “Predominantly, our products are rare outside Europe,” Orling says, with the tricky-to-place accent of someone born in Canada but educated in schools “all over Europe”.

Passersby, interior designers, and customers from far away beeline for the Taiwan-born, UK-raised Wu’s favourites: Original BTC’s industrial-chic Titan 1 Pendant lamps (from $600) in six colours. Barcelona’s ARXE makes striking salvaged-wood tables and cabinets (from $1,600). Famed Swedish designer Carl Malmsten’s midcentury-modernist glam yet not untouchable sofas and armchairs (from $3,250) make you want to settle in with a martini. And, from Sweden's Grythyttan—launched in 1889 making, yes, horseshoes—svelte outdoor furniture (from $246). "Every Swedish household has a setting in their house or cottage," says Orling. And the bestseller? Sweden’s Mateus handmade-in-Portugal tableware in mix-and-match colours and glazes (from $18.50).

"Be adventurous with home decorating," says Wu encouragingly. "Go with your gut feeling. Whatever you choose here will go together. It's—what do you say?—dummy-proof."

Another thing: don't fear wallpaper. "Wallpaper is huge now in Europe," says Orling. "Here, customers are reluctant, but when they start thinking of wallpaper rather than just the usual painting, they get very excited." Orling & Wu's ultra-hip wallpapers and fabrics include the UK's Cecil Beaton "Sketchbook" collection and the ogle-worthy "Garbo's Eyes" from Beaton's drawings of the Swedish icon's peepers.

A few blocks away—past Inform Interiors (50 Water Street), Parliament Interiors (115 Water Street), and Bulthaup (93 West Cordova Street)—Old Faithful Shop, the five-month-old home-goods store at 320 West Cordova Street, wins for coolest store you most want to live in. Partners Walter Manning and Savannah Olsen and French bulldog Jean-Pierre (who sleeps in an antique drawer) might not let you move into their airy space, with its giraffe-high ceilings and exposed-brick walls, but their knack for scoring beautiful yet practical stuff to enhance your own habitat should appease you.

“We like to say it’s quality goods for plain living, based on what I foresaw as a store that might have been in Gastown a hundred years ago,” the excellent-humoured Manning says, surveying his terrain. One stunning, wainscoted wall features images of old Vancouver, another an inviting house Manning built from old cedar fencing. “We want to carry things that, when you come in, you’re coming into a unique space with unique products you’re not seeing anywhere else.”

Nope, you won’t find anything like Old Faithful’s unshticky pioneer-hipster vibe—which Manning, neatly bearded and wearing a plaid shirt, embodies perfectly—anywhere anytime soon. There's the shop's name: yes, it's "a bummer" that some old geyser shares it, but Manning and Olsen mean it like, "Oh, I'll put on my old faithful leather jacket,'—things that are made to last," he says. Another fact: Manning's grandparents on both sides ran small general stores—the Newfoundland version of which he spent childhood time "kicking around the shop, collecting information via osmosis".

Osmosis worked. Manning and Olsen nab rare goods from the U.S., England, Japan, and places in between. Stacked on shelves and old wood tables are cowboy-cool enamel kitchenware, sleek French knives, blocky-beautiful cheeseboards, glass-domed terrariums, iron factory baskets, and unusual photography books.

What’s beguiling movie-industry folks and interior designers? Roost’s glass-cylinder Edison lamp ($120), beautiful filament bulb within; Brahms Mount’s antique-loomed blankets ($220); Union Wood Company’s carved-wood and reclaimed-steel industrial drafting chairs ($750); and Steele Basket Company’s "awesome" industrial wheeled laundry baskets ($155). "They have an undyed leather rim, so with use you're going to put your own sort of spin on it," says Manning—which, really, is what Old Faithful has done with Gastown.

Over at 157 West Hastings Street, a stone’s throw from the Cambie pub, a glowing orb beckons from inside Maai Living. Floating World ($2,980), the ethereal yet modern rattan-and-steel ceiling light, looks about the size of a smart car. In fact, it represents a stylish amalgam of two cultures that are, oh, only a continent apart.

“We decided that we want to have something that is Thai mixed with Scandinavian,” says Tang Phoonchai, speaking in Thai-accented English in his abstract-arty, brick-walled show room. “We” means he and his Korean-born wife and partner, Minkyung—with whom he has a young son, seen in a photo in blurry motion against a backdrop of elegant chairs.

“First thing is, we love wood,” Phoonchai says. “Maai means wood in Thai. So our main thing is wood, and another is sustainable.” For five years, the Phoonchais owned Beans Coffee and Tea House on Cambie Street, but they couldn’t stop thinking about furniture. In Bangkok, they found a designer doing the very Thai-Scandinavian style that was on their minds. Back in Vancouver, they found their Gastown space and began.

This meant coolly midcentury-modern tables and chairs (from $1,100) and mod yet luxurious sofas and armchairs, including the breathtaking rattan-based Pornyos chair ($1,450). “Mostly our customers live in condominiums and want something practical, simple, and elegant,” Phoonchai says, like the rattan-based Paloche coffee table and chair (from $500).

Above Maai Living’s silk cushions, handmade rugs, and traditional teak tableware floats the exquisitely modern White Space ($980), a floor lamp whose shade is a dreamy cluster of silkworm cocoons. As Orling notes, “Vancouver is a very modern city, with lots of concrete and glass. But really, you can mix and match, put the old with the new.”

And the Thai with the Scandinavian, the mod with the magic of silkworm cocoons, and historic Gastown with the now of interior design. Hmm, and a sleepy French bulldog with a warm cushion inside a very old drawer.