Owner of Toronto vintage brand Feelings Vintage, Aleks Roxborough, puts a new meaning on retail therapy by curating a space that not only lifts spirits but facilitates a safe space for emotions. With her recently opened showroom located in a house in the west end, you’ll feel like you’re shopping around in someone’s very chic closet.
“It’s called Feelings Vintage, because I want people to really feel like themselves and have the privacy to do that,” she says of her new showroom on Sterling Road. She strives to develop genuine relationships with her clients so that she can support their style aspirations and find clothing that is meaningful to them on a personal level. “People sit down here and they open up to me and I love that,” she says. “When I shop, I think of them.”
Roxborough has been operating Feelings Vintage since 2021, when she decided to turn her love of second-hand clothes and personal styling into an online business. She began posting weekly story sales to Instagram, “What We’re Feeling Fridays,” which have since become famous in the local vintage scene. In each iteration, she styles and models each of the pieces to give viewers a sense of how they can wear them (often in unexpected ways).
Shortly after, veteran vintage curator Kealan Sullivan invited Roxborough to take a vendor spot at Hippie Market. “I kind of never stopped doing markets from there,” she says. Through the market circuit, Roxboroughs befriended The Welcome Market founder Cindy Chau, and began helping her execute the market nearly every weekend. Eventually that role extended to managing the studio spaces in Chau’s more permanent alternate, The Welcome Studio (which has since closed).
The unit there had been Roxbourough’s first private showroom outside of her home. Fortunately, she came across a listing on Kijiji for a similar property as The Welcome Studio — a residential home that had been converted into a construction office, now being rented as individual studios. Roxborough offered to split the space with her friend Out of the Blue Vintage, and brought one of her Welcome Studio mates, tooth gem technician Glitter Gaud, into a neighbouring unit.
The other studios were filled by creatives who had also found the listing on Kijiji, including a ceramicist and a digital press.
As of July, Roxborough has taken over the studio space by herself, opening to the public Friday, Saturday and Sunday while juggling shifts at Good Habits on Dundas Street West.
She considers her inventory gender neutral, though she has a personal affiliation for romantic pieces that may be considered more feminine like frills and lace. She has also dedicated a rack to masculine pieces featuring T-shirts, straight leg denim, sweaters, button-up shirts and varsity jackets.
“When I pick things, my highest priority is making sure that it’s something that I would wear. Even if it isn’t my style, I deem it Aleks approved,” she says. “I don’t really care too much about labels, but I do care about the quality of clothing.”
She describes her clothes as having “an adventurous spirit,” but integrates trends into her curation for shoppers who prefer not to take too much risk with their wardrobe and want help finding those coveted pieces.
“I like all the decades; I don’t have a favourite because I find my personal style is about being able to mix it all together,” she says. Sizes range from XXS-3XL (the latter of which is particularly present in her skirt collection), and are modelled by friends on the Friday story sale.
“I’m trying to provide cute clothing to people, and that’s it,” she says.
She loves seeing customer’ personal style, so much so that last year, Roxborough began documenting the personal style of queer community members through a portrait and interview series published on her Instagram called QUEERBOOK.
“I love talking about style with anybody, because I feel — especially in the queer community — that it’s such a definite part of an individual’s identity that allows them to express themselves and be free,” she says.
You can visit Feelings Vintage at 278 Sterling Rd. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.
