This Toronto store-meets-gallery is replete with unique art and garments you’re unlikely to find anywhere else, but perhaps its most valuable offering is community.
After Toronto-based artist and curator, Ian Kelso, ran into “zoning issues” with his then up-and-coming gallery space, Studio IDFK on McCaul Street in the spring, there was no question as to whether he’d open another one. The real decision, he tells me, was what, exactly, version 2.0 would look like.
The result, which opened its doors in Baldwin Village last August, is WNDRLND mrkt; a weird and wonderful collection of art, clothing and things that are neither here nor there that, Ian tells me, “you can’t find anywhere else.”
IDFK, Ian tells me, operated more strictly as a gallery space and event venue, where he’d show emerging artists while also fostering community through a series of events, like paint nights, live music and more experimental offerings like Dream Concerts.
“Mainly what we sort of focused on at the gallery was doing events where we could bring that community together and grow it, and also a platform for people to be able to exercise their creativity,” Ian tells me.
Ian Kelso, founder of WNDRLND, stands in front of a rack of his garments.
The studio was on a fast track to becoming one of the more interesting and boundary-breaking venues in the city when, suddenly, it hit a wall when it came to zoning.
In hindsight, though, this would prove to be just the sort of road block that actually ends up sending you in a new direction, not cancelling the trip entirely.
“At the same time […] one of the areas that I was very keen to have been developing was the fashion and doing independent fashion. I started it at my own small upcycling label called IDFK […] and that was something that I developed a real passion for,” he tells me.
The gallery’s old landlords, members of the family that ran nearby Silverstein’s Bakery for 100 years, happened to have another space just around the corner on Baldwin, with a near equal square footage to the gallery that had historically been used as a clothing store open up. It was perfect.
The enormous store comes with an equally vibrant history.
The building itself, Ian tells me, was actually the original Silverstein’s Bakery before the business outgrew the space in the 1970s, at which point it became a clothing store called Yellow Ford Truck.
“Probably a few people know Baldwin Village is kind of the other center of counter culture and protest during the 70s,” Ian tells me, referring to Yorkville as the other hub.
“Baldwin village was all draft dodgers coming up from the U.S., trying to avoid conscription into the Vietnam War, and so this store in 1970s was called Yellow Ford Truck, because that was the kind of truck that the sort of refugee from the U.S. were driving, and it became a communal fashion store,” Ian tells me.
That very sort of rebellious, free-thinking energy that once coursed through Baldwin Village (and, to some extent, still does,) is alive and well at WNDRLND mrkt, where Ian has curated a collection of works by local and international artists, designers and craftspeople.
The only rule when it comes to deciding what he will and won’t carry in the store? You can’t be able to find it anywhere else.
Work from local street artist, Renaissance, can be found around the shop.
Particularly exciting to me during my most recent visit to WNDRLND was a collection of artwork and garments by elusive local street artist, Renaissance, whose work, which frequently takes the form of inspiring or philosophical quotes scrawled across construction scaffolding around Kensington, Chinatown and Baldwin Village.
There’s also Arnie Guha, better known by his brand name Acid4Yuppies, who creates psychedelic lightbox installations and fabric patterns printed on garments that are on sale at WNDRLND.
Back in the IDFK days, Ian showed one of Arnie’s collections at the gallery, which points to the deeply personal relationships that Ian fosters with his collaborators. Not quite a gallery and not quite a store, WNDRLND is full of artwork collected through the fostering of real connections, and sold that way too.
Ian’s own label, IDFK, which uses recycled and reworked garments and artwork to create original pieces, is also on display at the store.
IDFK originals on display at WNDRLND.
“It was an alternative way of making clothes that presented an interesting challenge, to be able to first curate and find pieces and then turn them into something that has currency again, and at the same time, it was something that was actually reusing fabric that would otherwise be put into landfill,” he tells me.
“And I guess above all that, when I started making it, people really took to it,” he adds.
Recently, Ian has also begun to host events in the space, much like he did at the original gallery, only WNDRLND’s labyrinthine layout lends itself particularly well to a diverse array of different engagements.
The entire space is built as a sort of loop where you’ll pass through about five distinct “rooms,” which allows for a perfect path for fashion shows. A cozy back room with charming, airy skylights offers space for live performances or talks. In the summertime, the shop is set far back from the street, opening up a sort of patio space that’s ideal for sidewalk sales.
Much like in the Lewis Carroll novel from which the store, at least partially, gets its name, the options for what WNDRLND can do, be or look like are endless, and, moreover, they’re changing all the time.
WNRLND is an exemplification of exactly the type of rebel spirit that, in my opinion, at least, makes Toronto so special, but that has also slipped between the ever-narrowing cracks over the past few years as much of the city increasingly caters towards mainstream, and largely socially disconnected, sensibilities.
WNDRLND mrkt.
There is still community out there, and there is still a grassroots art scene, too; you just have to know where to look for it. If you ask me, WNDRLND is a pretty good place to start.
WNDRLND is located at 25 Baldwin.
