Vancouver Update: New Skirts!

You may have noticed these newest additions to a very long line of Smoking Lily skirts posted on our website this weekend. They are fantastic skirts. We love skirts! They are fun, comfortable and I feel they make for a much less traumatic change-room experience than pants (Does anyone else find that pants are overly cruel about pointing out less than desirable physical features, while skirts are happy to help out with acceptable delusions of walking about in your younger body by skimming over the difficult spots and highlighting the good stuff? Aaah skirts, you're a good friend). As any of you that have shopped in our Vancouver store will know, Erin and I are always happy to extoll the benefits of the almighty skirt... and their awesome cousin, the slip.

Here's the new Cypress skirt in men's shirting cotton plaid, paired with a red Hama Hama top and a cotton jersey Cardigan.

And here's the new Hester skirt in striped cotton canvas paired with a Simple Tee - fun!

Vancouver Update: Lily at Stanley Park Concert

On Saturday night, Christina and I closed up the Main Street shop, hopped on our bikes, met up with our boyfriends, and cycled down to Stanley Park to enjoy some of the free concerts put on for Canada's 125th birthday.

Christina reminded me to bring my camera, as we were all clad in Smoking Lily, naturally!

It was a busy, boisterous, friendly atmosphere. We met up with and bumped into numerous friends (including 2 visiting from LA) and so my camera lay forgotten for most of the night as we chatted and cajoled and listened to Neko Case and then The New Pornographers. Here are a few of the snaps that I did take:

Christina took the photo of her boyfriend Blair's affection for Neko - hilarious!

We cut out a little early to avoid the crowds and managed to snake our way around Lost Lagoon. It was a fun and refreshing ride through the dark park. We stopped in Yaletown for a snack and then hopped on the Canada Line train with our bikes, to avoid the big hill on the way home at 1:00am. As much as I thought I should feel lame putting my bike on the train, I must admit that it was really nice to cruise downhill the last few blocks toward home...

Vancouver Update: Summer Fabrics

Mmmm, the warm days of summer have finally hit. When I stepped outside to take photos of new items that arrived in Vancouver today, the sun was wonderfully warm but exceptionally bright, so I shot the garments in the shade of a small tree in front of the shop.

Here is the Lucrezia Dress in a cute lightweight cotton plaid, with an Engineer striped sash. It has that great feminine style with masculine fabrics dichotomy that I always find appealing.

The latest Mt. Pleasant fabric is an acidy yellow/chartreuse. A great fresh summer punch of colour.

Vancouver Update: Men's Tees

As I was hauling in my boyfriend's laundry yesterday, I realized that he has quite the fantastic Smoking Lily men's tee collection. The tees below are just some of the recently washed summer tees, there is a pile of long-sleeve tees as well. I'm guessing that there are a few clothes-lines that look like this in the Lily family.

We have a wide variety of colours and prints available in all sizes (small through extra large) in the shops right now. Great for Father's Day gifts! As are the ties!

Vancouver Update: Cherry Blossoms

The ornamental cherry blossoms on our side street, here at 21st and Main Street in Vancouver, have finally bloomed! They are at their most gorgeous peak of powder pouf pink!

I love the pretty shadows cast in the photo below, and the first sprinkling of pink petals, and most of all the appearance of a dog's head in the pavement (looking to the right along the crack).

The blossoms held back during our abnormally cold April and have now bloomed for what Trish has dubbed "Mavember". Any West Coasters will recall last year's "Junuary". We now have our fingers and toes crossed that our current unseasonably cold weather will run it's course quickly so we can move on to shed our wrist warmers and scarves.

For now, we have a limited run of Silk Satin Ascots available ($54). They are warm ('cause they're silk), pretty ('cause they are silk satin) and fun ('cause we have nice colours and interesting prints on them). The perfect accessory to brave the cool days and downright chilly evenings of Spring without looking like you are dressing for winter!

Vancouver Update: Snake Eyes

No, this is not another post on our Vegas trip. In our usual Tuesday box this morning (we get shipments of lovely new Lily goods every Tuesday and Friday in Vancouver!) I found something rather unusual - snake heads!

Korinne (who manages the Milkman's Daughter in Victoria) and I had been talking about display ideas and she had found some toy animal heads that she thought would be good to modify as hooks. As Korinne has a good eye and great ideas I agreed that she should send me some to test out. Well, they are hilariously cute/creepy. I will have to figure out how to make them into hooks, as that will definitely be awesome.

For now, I popped them onto the ends of our wall-mounted clothing rails. These should be good for random giggling and silly conversations. Thanks, Korinne!!

Oh, this last photo shows the Garden State Dress in all it's wonderful colours. I should let you know that we now have a few available in Extra Small!

Vancouver Update: Springiness

We have made some Springy display updates in the Vancouver shop and are working on more. Here are some photos of newness and Springiness in store for you.

We changed up the jewelry display to be much more colourific (yes I'm taking liberties with the English language today!). I found these weird spools at Urban Source, a great place to find odd items to use for all manner of crafting. Fortunately, they are located just 5 blocks north of us on Main Street. Frequent visits are fun!

The Erica Weiner pieces look really interesting on the spools. We have a few new pieces from her line including the super sweet Faux Turquoise stud earrings at the bottom left of the photo.

We also received some new pieces by Vancouver jewelry design Sophie Wyser. Her line is called Random Revival and is constructed from new and used pieces of interesting materials that she reworks and combines to make really beautiful earrings and necklaces (I should do a full blog post on her soon - she's awesome!).

These old tubes are the new lighting I installed over the cash desk. The 60's vibe and colours go well with the kooky bright spools.

Here's a sneak peek into the next window display...

And for Spring garments...the most recent Luv Affair incarnation! Gorgeous stretch cotton twill with lace print, delicately scattered with blue Beetles. How great would this be to wear to a Spring wedding?

Vancouver Update: Great Greens

Yes, Aiko! Fresh Spring colours are arriving in the shops. That hot pink scarf is smashingly eye catching and smile inducing.

I am particularly loving all the kooky new greens that are hitting the shelves. The Florescent Seafoam Green of the cotton scarf below is delightful (with the tooth print...awesome!).

This Ivanhoe bag is such a lovely green that we are going to paint our feature wall in the Vancouver shop the same colour. I'll share photos when it's complete.

We are down to the final few Oscillators. It was available in this fresh mid-tone green, as well as a pea soup green. Give us a ring if you'd like to get your hands on one of these cozy Spring cuties before they are all gone.