New Kensington vintage shop features Vogue-approved heirloom quilt coats, Canada Reviews

Two local designers with rich Toronto history have partnered to open a shoppable bohemian time capsule in Kensington Market. The store, yet to be officially named, is a collaboration between revered 20-year-old heirloom textile brand Honeybea (featured in Vogue), operated by Rebecca, aka Becky, Caulford, and curated vintage shop Vintage Baby, run by Becky Addison– the daughter of the late Jim Addison who owned Addison’s Inc., a long-standing Toronto antique shop that was well known in the Toronto film business for supplying props. 

Inside the inviting Kensington shop, you’ll find an array of clothes made from antique textiles, curated vintage, as well as vintage folk art, knick knacks, antiques and fabrics. It’s probably exactly what the inside of the two Beckys’ minds look like.

Both women were born and raised in Toronto by parents who loved collecting antiques, and attach a certain spirituality to their sourcing practices — they believe that the textiles they find carry immense love and nostalgia that has the ability to bring people together.  

Caulford launched her textile brand in 2003 after graduating from Toronto Metropolitan Univeristy’s Fashion program. Meanwhile, Addison took inspiration from vintage needlepoints that she discovered while working in her dad’s shop in the mid-2010s, and learned to sew from her mom, before launching her own brand featuring vintage jackets reworked with needlepoints. 

After her father’s passing in 2017, Addison opened Vintage Baby’s first store location in her father’s old shop on Gerrard Street, where he started his antique plumbing business in the 1960s before it evolved to include antique and collectibles at large. 

Around the same time, she vended at the Hippie Market (her first time at a market in Toronto) and met Caulford.

“[The Honeybea] booth was the most stunning thing I’ve ever seen,” says Addison. “I immediately wanted to be her.” 

“We’re very naturally drawn to each other’s things, because we share a similar essence in what we love, what we curate and what we find special,” adds Caulford. “Over the years, Becks has bought a lot of my pieces and I’ve bought a lot of hers.”  

While Caulford always operated Honeybea out of her small Queen West studio space and sold her pieces online, Addison moved Vintage Baby to various stores, including a year-long residency at Coffee and Clothing from 2022-2023, immediately followed by a collaboration with Wildflower Goods in the exact Nassau storefront that Addison now shares with Honeybea. 

Caulford was ecstatic for her friend, as she had long felt that the corner building was a particularly special place.

“For as long as I can remember, I’ve looked at the space and thought that would be a dream, that would be the perfect space for Honeybea,” she says. But between family life and running her e-commerce business full-time, opening a store had never been in the cards.

That was until August of this year, when Addison decided she couldn’t carry on her business alone and resolved that she would take a break from curating vintage. But first she texted her friend to let her know the space Caulford had always cherished was newly available. 

“She said, ‘I know how much you love it, do you want me to talk to the landlord about it?’” Caulford recalls. “I thought to myself, ‘I can’t do this right now, but how can I pass this up?’” 

At first Caulford declined, feeling she didn’t have the capacity. But she didn’t want Addison to give up on the dream space either, urging her to try and stay by herself. 

Then a spark took hold. She considered selling select items in the space and contributing to the rent, and before she knew it she had offered to go in 50/50. The collaboration was all Addison needed to stay.

“I loved that [she] asked me to partner because that was my ultimate dream, to work with her,” she says.

“It was a re-awakening. We became the perfect fit in an unlikely moment that neither one of us knew was coming,” adds Caulford. 

They take a similar approach to curating, “tweedling” things around until the arrangement feels right. “We always say that there’s one piece that’s a heartbeat and everything else revolves around it,” explains Caulford. For Addison, the heartbeat is a small dark blue glassware piece that reminds her of her dad, since it was his favourite colour.

Their collections are intermingled throughout the store, with one changing room in the corner fashioned out of a mishmash of vintage textiles, and a vintage sewing table repurposed into a checkout counter. The aesthetic is warm and bohemian — Caulford says she could sit there for hours just listening to James Taylor.

“It feels like home.” 

Products range from $20-$1,000 depending on the item. Some pieces involve extensive labour (countless hours crocheting, hand-cutting and sewing garments in small batches) while others are rare commodities (like an 1800s quilt in mint condition).

“Some things are a little bit more kitschy, and so they’re more affordable,” says Caulford, adding that there’s something for everyone. “I see people with really good, well traveled taste coming here for special items.”

You can visit Honeybea and Vintage Baby at 90 Nassau St. from noon-6 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday.