ONCE WAS LOST
Brand new Toronto boutique, Lost & Found, opens on
Dundas West
Just two weeks old, Lost & Found, a new boutique located on Dundas Street in the West end of Toronto is hoping that the hip bar/restaurant boom on the Little Portugal strip will also parlay into a more fashion forward shopping crowd. With menswear shop Red Canoe just down the street, the wares at Lost & Found, thankfully for both sexes, will make for quite the sartorial draw.
Head for a coffee (yes L&F has it’s own espresso machine and serves Metropolis coffee!) and stay for the well thought out mix of clothing and accessories. For ladies, think Charlotte Ronson, Levi’s and jewelry labels Joomi Lim from NYC and Ax+Apple from Austin. And coming soon, Toronto’s own Erin Kleinberg, Uniqlo and Libertine-Libertine, from Denmark. For the boys, check out Wolf vs Goat’s well tailored dress shirts, Uniqlo’s fitted tees, MAKR Carry Goods, and footwear from Chicago’s Oak Street Boot Makers, which are handcrafted in the U.S.
“[Our] aim for the store is to expose Torontonians to new and interesting brands and designers from around the world,” says co-owner Zai Rajkotwala, who studied fashion at the London Institute of Fashion Design, and met business partner and fellow fashion enthusiast Jonathan Elias little over a year ago in their apartment building near Bloor Street. Elias, who once lived in San Francisco and worked as a merchandiser for The Gap, has also started a clothing label, Dull Clothing sold at Uncle Otis in Yorkville, and an online market place for people to sell or buy new and used clothing and accessories, called Shop My Clothes [ShopMyClothes.com]. Working together on Lost & Found was a natural fit, as was working with third partner, Justin Veiga, a high school math teacher and childhood friend of Elias’.
The store itself is rugged and cozy with plywood floors, a large leather sofa, industrial metal hooks and hanging racks, and sewn together burlap bags for change room curtains, and the three friends have plans to open a back patio come summer.
