A look inside The Apartment, a millennial-pink vintage shop in Moss Park

In 2017, Fiona Watt opened her East Chinatown vintage shop, The Apartment, painting the façade of the store pink to help it stand out on the block. That bubblegum hue has since become part of her brand. Just before the pandemic in 2020, Watt moved The Apartment to Moss Park and repainted her new exterior in the same rosy shade. When Covid restricted in-person shopping, Watt bumped up the shop’s online presence through social media and website sales, which helped her stay afloat until reopening in June. Here’s a look at The Apartment.

Watt’s building is from the 1880s, and the space featured exposed-brick walls and a vintage tin roof. The space was last used as a diner, but sat vacant for 10 years. Watt painted one wall of the shop white to help tie it together. “We used about 20 gallons of paint,” she says:

Watt colour-codes her shop by neutrals, pinks and reds, and blues and greens. She finds items through estate sales, thrift shops and private collectors. “I source mostly from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s,” she says:

Here’s the blue-green section, with kitchenware and some lighting:

Watt uses this tree branch to hang lighting fixtures. She got it from a friend who does Holt Renfrew window displays:

This corner sofa was custom-made in the ’70s by the original owner’s father, a furniture designer. “It was an awful floral fabric with purples and blues running through it,” Watt says. She reupholstered it in bouclé and custom ordered the pillows to match the sofa. “It’s like a cloud now”:

The Manet print is a vintage find. The black and white canvas is from local artist Christina Nielsen:

Watt went to an estate sale north of Whitby to purchase a giant marble vase and ended up leaving with a dozen more items, including this ’70s space-age dresser and a pair of mustard-yellow fibreglass chairs:

Watt’s landlord in Moss Park was game to have her repaint all three storeys of her new building’s façade. “I’m in a colourful row of buildings now and it just fits perfectly”: