The Toronto vintage shop behind some of Heated Rivalry’s best looks | Canada Voices

In Heated Rivalry, the wildly successful Canadian series about two star hockey players secretly falling in love, the clothes help tell a larger story about confidence, masculinity and societal expectations – even if they often end up on the floor.

Many of the most memorable looks from the show, which is adapted from Rachel Reid’s popular romance book series Game Changers, are sourced from a vintage and fashion archive shop in downtown Toronto called 20 Maud.

Costume designer Hanna Puley carefully selected each outfit worn by main characters Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov throughout the series, which has achieved international acclaim and is Crave’s most popular original program to date. Searching for used men’s designer clothing online, she discovered 20 Maud’s Instagram account and scheduled a time to look around (the shop is by appointment only).

“They’re so good at curating men’s wear that is more unique, higher end and unexpected,” said Puley, who is based in Toronto and was also the costumer for Amazon Prime’s Overcompensating.

She and assistant costume designer Zoe Leberg selected a few pieces for clean-cut Shane, but she said they found the overall style of 20 Maud – urban, edgy – to be a better fit for the bolder Ilya.

Take the tiger-print Jean Paul Gaultier button-down Ilya wears in the club scene, for instance. To Puley, the garment felt at once arrogant and ostentatious while also evoking a skinned predator – a perfect representation of the character’s hurt pride as he watches his love interest with someone else.

“To wear a shirt like that, you have to have so much confidence and not be at all concerned with what people think of you,” she said. “At the same time, when he sees Shane across the dance floor while wearing a shirt of a skinned cat, it’s such a good visual of his deflated ego in that moment.”

Other notable pieces sourced from 20 Maud include Ilya’s drop-crotch Rick Owens pants (also known as the “tuna melt” pants), the Helmut Lang coat that Ilya wears to his father’s funeral, Shane’s Visvim caramel-coloured leather jacket (a more elevated, aspirational version of the brown leather bomber he wears earlier in the series) and Sasha’s floral Enfants Riches Déprimés shirt.

“When we were shopping there, it was about trying to build a story for the people who would know who the designers were of these pieces,” Puley said. “If you don’t, you could look it up and discover a lot about what we were trying to convey about the characters.”

For 20 Maud co-owner Alex Maxamenko, watching his curated pieces help bring the story to life was highly rewarding, especially since he was able to offer his own insight into what the characters might wear.

“They’d come to me and break down the character archetypes and just let me run wild with my thoughts as to what that might look like,” said Maxamenko, who is 22 and runs the shop with his 20-year-old business partner, Christian Ferguson.

Maxamenko and Ferguson started reselling clothes together when they were just 12 and 13, operating out of their homes in Toronto before opening their retail space in April of 2024.

Their goal, Maxamenko said, is to have 20 Maud be the best broad collection of archival fashion in Canada. Having their pieces featured in one of the biggest shows in the world certainly doesn’t hurt business.

“I did expect it to do well, but wow – it’s been everywhere and it’s so cool,” Maxamenko said.

Thanks to Heated Rivalry‘s overwhelming popularity, Crave has already green-lit a second season. When the time comes, Maxamenko said he and Ferguson will be eager and ready to offer even more eye-catching, expressive pieces to help tell these beloved characters’ stories once again.