Afternoon tea at a posh hotel, a fashion show, and a chance to impress Mom with your savvy eye for secondhand fashion, all for $20? Sounds like a Mother’s Day trifecta to me. Book your seats now for the Salvation Army Thrift Store Fashion Show, Wednesday afternoon (May 14) at the Four Seasons Hotel Vancouver (791 West Georgia Street). On top of tea and the show, there’s a silent auction, gift bags, and door prizes. Tickets are available at all Sally Ann thrift stores.

For the first time in many seasons, ankle-length dresses will return to Vancouver sidewalks, with a wide range of styles to tickle your ankles.

Check out Carmen Majeau’s crafty wares, and what you don’t see is as revolutionary as what you do. Majeau creates happy, summery wallets embroidered with cute octopuses and forest animals; purses that close with antique buttons and sport appliqués; and cheerful polka-dot bas. As well, she’s walking in the footsteps of the arts and crafts movement’s William Morris, and those of midcentury anticolonialist—and spinning-wheel enthusiast—Mahatma Gandhi. How?

Yes, Vancouver, get a hold of yourself: H&M has finally arrived. The Swedish fashion retailer will open the doors to its Pacific Centre location and, of course, its scads of hip, inexpensive clothing for women and men on May 22.

What: Shutter Shades

Like many new moms, Elizabeth Yap-Chung wasn’t jumping up and down with glee at the thought of returning to the 9 to 5 world after her maternity leave ended. But where most women heave a sigh, organize childcare, and resign themselves to the daily commute, Yap-Chung started to think about a way around it. “I wanted to stay home,” she says in a phone interview. “I’d had a business of my own before, and I had a taste for that.

After launching scents whose names start with A, B, C, and D, Canadian-born “nose” Ineke Rühland has created—well, no prizes for figuring out that it begins with E. Her Ineke line’s evocative Evening Edged in Gold has top notes of plum and osmanthus, features night-blooming midnight candy and angel’s trumpet, and finishes with bass notes of leather and wood. I’d call it “delicately sensual” but if you want to get technical, it’s classified as a “woody oriental”.

What: Dolce Vita snakeskin Bermuda sandals

Tabith Savoie emblazons art on fashion with her indie label togs, which uses sustainable fabrics and lots of bold patterns for sexy and comfortbale results.

Using kids at play on a merry-go-round as a source of power is just one of the bright ideas at SWELL 2008, an ecodesign exhibit that’s part of 30 Days of Sustainability. Other innovations being presented include the LifeStraw portable water purifier, which lets people safely drink directly from rivers, and a program aimed at closing the digital divide between rich and poor by providing low-cost laptops to children.

Small white flowers, blue-black berries, golden-orange leaves, vivid red stalks—hearing Caitlin Black describe the seasons of a blueberry bush makes you want to go out and plant your whole yard with them. Black and her husband, Owen, are partners in Aloe Designs, a company that creates gardens for people who not only care about their own patch but about the planet at large.

What: Eitan top, Etoile by Isabel Marant Where: Misch (2960 Granville Street) Price Tag: $289 Why: The kaffiyeh scarf, a traditional Arab headdress, has been brought back into pop culture by hipsters and fashionistas alike.

Back in 1997, the Vancouver Art Gallery officially ushered skin art into the city’s mainstream with the show Pierced Hearts and True Love. Tattoos featuring anchors and large-breasted women took up most of the exhibit, plus some traditional fare from Asia and Africa.

Logically, good skin-care products should come from places with cold, dry climates that suck out every bit of moisture. Rocky Mountain Soap Company (3057 Granville Street)—based in Canmore, Alberta, in the lee of the Rockies—has a new line of face and eye creams, soothing toner, and cleansing oil ($24.99 to $39.99), all 100-percent natural and sustainably packaged.

See the Gallery With Main Street and Gastown bursting with boutiques brimming with B.C. design, Portobello West a monthly must, and blogs and Web sites landing news of the hotness within the city limits in your inbox every day, it’s easy to forget that local fashion only became a major force fairly recently. A biannual happening since 2004, Vancouver Fashion Week was a once-a-year thang when show producer Jamal Abdourahman first launched the event in 2001. “He wanted to create a forum for B.C.