Mission Accomplished

Down Queen Street.  Up Lansdowne to Bloor.  Back down to Dufferin and Dundas and then a sprint down Spadina to Queen.  Literally, it was a mission finding our clothing articles and getting back in time.  Nonetheless, it was a wonderful experience and I would defintely return to do it again.

The stores we went to varied from old-fashioned to high-end to run down basements to thrift stores.  Many of the stores at the beginning of our route are too expensive or not opened early.  Therefore, we decided to skip them and go to the 69 Vintage Collective/Buy the Pound store at Bloor.  On our way, we literally went underground to something that resembled a storage basement.  Surprisingly, we did find some awesome pants for a character and we were also able to bargain.  

Excited about our purchase, we continued the half hour walk to Bloor.  Before we reached our destination, we found a couple thrift shops.  These took me off guard because the smell really got to me.  Some of the customers there looked like regular, middle-classed people, but they had a really bad stench to them.  This made the store a nightmare to go into.  Everything felt really dirty and gross.  However, I am grateful for the experience because it really showed me the other side of life, making me realize how lucky I am to be able to go into real malls and try on clean clothes.

Anyway, at the 69 Vintage Collective/Buy the Pound store, we found some very interesting costumes that really tied together our scene.  The unique thing about this store is that a section of their merchandise is priced by weight.  As a result, we got a lot of items for low prices. 

The other cool thing about this store is that it is about five stores put into one.   69 Vintage Collective/Buy the Pound was on the main floor.  Upstairs, there are two other stores that are literally one small room each.  Down in the basement is Ransack the Universe.  They have really old furniture and items such as typewriters.  Also, they have a variety of buttons, tableware, cups and mugs, bags, ties and all those miscellaneous items.  It even has an old-fashioned, musty smell.

Content with our purchases, we headed back.  The bad news was that we took the time we had for granted.  Thinking we had more than enough time to get back, we strolled through the rest of the way.  However, with half an hour left on the clock, we began to panic.  We never realized how far down Dundas we had to walk because we did not have that part of the map printed.  With twenty minutes left on the clock, we were told Spadina was fifteen minutes away.  Then down Spadina, we had five blocks before we reached Queen.  Knowing that we would be disqualified if we were late, we ran those five blocks and made it back with three minutes to spare.  I hated the running, but it definitely made for a much more eventful day.

All in all, I would for sure come back to this area to go vintage shopping.  Seeing all the amazing clothes we can get for such low prices—especially at the thrift store where the clothes are already less than five dollars and are additionally half off—really fuelled my interest.