Love, Me Boutique’s Chara Kingston

Having studied to be a contemporary art curator, Chara Kingston
decided she didn’t belong in that world: “It didn’t feel real.”
Kingston moved from Ontario, worked at the Nova Scotia Cultural Network
then decided she wanted to make her own stuff, so she started a label
called Simply C.

“Through that I met so many different artists who were all saying
the same thing: It’s really hard to get your stuff into mainstream
boutiques, whether it’s in the city or across Canada because you’re
competing against mass-manufactured brands, and the people who are
selling at those stores don’t have the expertise to walk people through
the handmade versus mass-manufactured.”

Kingston was spending more time networking than selling her own
work, which is when she clued in her talent was selling other people’s
stuff. She opened Love, Me in October 2007. Offering handmade,
small-run products created by local and Canadian designers and
artisans, her store has filled a niche.

“There was a need for it,” says Kingston. “People have been saying
there used to be a pocket, and then for whatever reason those stores
closed, and there wasn’t a place that was just doing handmade. I think
now, the handmade movement has gone from underground artsy crafty or
what we’d call ‘grandma crafts,’ it’s gone from those two points and
it’s emerged into something that’s quirky, interesting, funny and
lovely.”

The public’s growing ecological consciousness also means people are
considering how buying in a store like Love, Me can positively affect
the whole community: “People are starting to think on these new
wavelengths that weren’t part of the shopping mentality for so
long.”

This article appears in Nov 19-25, 2009.