Full-time vintage lover, Alex Dacosta, just opened up her dream vintage shop in the west end, and it has quickly become a must-visit of the Toronto vintage scene. Located just north of Runnymede station, Smoking Vintage is a highly curated boutique offering a mix of mid-range and designer pieces from the ’90s to the 2000s.
Dacosta has impeccable taste, and while it’s true that she loves vintage clothes, she confesses that the space is also the means by which she realized a long-held dream of designing her own storefront. Before launching her vintage business, Dacosta studied architecture at the University of Waterloo, during which she worked co-op jobs in Paris, Berlin and New York, and fell in love with the possibilities of design.
Smoking Vintage started as a Depop shop; a solution for the overflow of designer pieces that were beginning to take over Dacosta’s personal closet. When the shop got popular, she transitioned it into an Instagram store and managed it online for a few years before briefly renting a pop-up retail space in the Junction (where her permanent space is now) in 2023.
In October, she moved to a small studio on Dupont Street. It served as a more casual retail space in which shopping was conducted by appointment, and while it was tiny, it harboured nothing but gems. In the vintage community, word traveled about Dacosta’s incredible collection and in the latter months of the studio rental, she was happily surprised to get an influx of new customers.
Then in April of 2024, the Junction unit where she had previously held her pop-up became available for a full-time rental.
“I thought I wouldn’t open a store for a few years,” she says, “but I just knew when the opportunity came up, that it was the time.”
The unit had good bones — high ceilings, a window box facing the street — but it was a far cry from Dacosta’s dream store. So she and her partner Katty Cybulski, a fellow architect, began drafting designs. They spent countless hours measuring the space and trying various configurations, before eventually laying the sketches on the floor and walking around them to see what would work best.
“I was working on it nearly every night after work,” Dacosta says, since she was still operating Smoking Vintage full-time during the day.
A main consideration of Dacosta’s design blueprint was to have a seating area for people to rest. You’ll find it tucked into the back of the store, outfitted with an ’80s Ikea couch that Dacosta thrifted for this exact purpose years ago. It had been stored away, waiting for her to open her dream store. Now it’s finally home, surrounded by vintage fashion magazines and design books.
“The idea is that when it’s not that busy people can sit and read, and look at the reference photos for inspiration,” she says.
As if that weren’t inviting enough, light shines into the area through a stained glass window that Dacosta thrifted from the Aberfoyle Antique Market. Recalling the day she went searching for it, she says, “I must have gone to every booth measuring every stained glass window I saw until I found the perfect one. I think it was meant to be.”
The rest of the store is characterized by a singular clothing rack that spans the entire length of the shop (nearly 30 feet), two fitting rooms and newly built-in shelves that display shoes and accessories. She fills hangers as they empty, which means you can find a few new pieces every day. And every two weeks, she puts out 20 or 30 new items.
“The range is mainly ’90s to early 2000s,” she says, “but I try to stick to the 20-year vintage rule (nothing that isn’t vintage).”
There are plenty of items on the more affordable side, ranging from $30-$100, then there’s a mix of mid-range mall brands ranging from $100-$200, and higher end pieces ranging from $200 to $800, though she prefaces that only a couple of rare items cost that much — like a pair of Fall/Winter ’99 green leather Prada boots with leaf decals. Typically items like that sell online to a specific buyer, she explains.
“I think those pieces go to a special person, either someone who has fallen madly in love, or someone who has been looking for that item in their size for ages.”
Merchandising was done by stylist Vanessa Campana, who first met Dacosta as a customer and became a friend. “I really trust her aesthetic sense, she has great taste,” says Dacosta.
Another customer-turned-friend, pastry artist Sid Starkman, made Dacosta a Smoking Vintage cake to celebrate her opening day. Meanwhile her mom and longtime supporter, Sharon Yano, sells locally-grown flower bouquets for $15 out of the shop.
“Designing the store was such a collaborative process,” Dacosta restates adamantly, crediting her mom and cousins and her partner Katty and local carpenter Gregory Walters as key players in making her dream a reality.
You can visit Smoking Vintage at 514A Annette St., Friday-Sunday from 12-7 p.m. or by appointment Monday-Thursday.
