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When most people are still hitting snooze, Erin Templeton is already elbow-deep in a warehouse somewhere, digging through racks of clothes. It’s a ritual she’s kept for years. Once a week, she gets up before sunrise to go vintage picking, searching for the pieces that will eventually end up inside the unmistakable bubblegum-pink shop in Chinatown that bears her name.
“You literally just have to wake up at four in the morning and work your fucking butt off all day long,” Templeton shares with the Straight. “You’re never going to find the same thing twice.”
It’s probably not the glamorous picture most people have of working in fashion. Then again, very little about Templeton’s career has followed the traditional script.
Long before “curated vintage” became a buzzword, Templeton was selling secondhand finds from a tiny corner of a friend’s stall on London’s Portobello Road while studying leatherwork.
Her first retail space was a small corner table at a friend’s shop with just enough room for a handful of handmade leather bracelets and whatever treasures she’d found while thrifting. That combination of vintage and leather has stayed with her ever since.
After returning to Vancouver in 2002, Templeton set up a studio in Shanghai Alley before opening the Chinatown storefront that has now been part of the neighbourhood for 19 years. Half vintage shop, half working leather studio, it’s the kind of place where every visit turns up something different, whether that’s a broken-in denim jacket, a perfectly worn leather bag, or Templeton herself hammering hardware onto wallets in the back.
Today, every leather piece in the shop passes through her own hands. Her longtime seamstress retired two and a half years ago after working alongside Templeton for 14 years. She gave a year’s notice, and together they spent months building up an inventory of the styles Templeton knew she’d struggle to make alone. Now she cuts, sews, and finishes every bag herself, while still spending one day each week picking vintage.
“We need to remind everyone that this kooky lady is making all these herself in the back,” she says with a laugh. “Most of the time I’m just trying to get it all done.”
It’s a far cry from the wholesale business she once ran. Before the pandemic, Templeton’s leather goods were stocked by around 30 retailers, but years of chasing unpaid invoices and absorbing the financial risk of wholesale eventually wore thin.
“My nice-guy approach ended up making me my own worst enemy,” she admits.
COVID became an unexpected reset. Instead of chasing accounts, Templeton focused on the store, making products herself and selling directly to customers. Staying small, she says, ended up saving the business.
“If my products had been at a factory somewhere else, if my money had been tied up in orders, I would’ve lost my business,” she says. “Luckily, I could just get behind the sewing machine.”
That independence has also allowed her to remain in Chinatown while much of Vancouver has become increasingly difficult for independent businesses to operate in. Templeton lights up talking about the neighbourhood.
“I have such a soft spot for Chinatown,” she says.
She’s lived there, worked there, and watched generations of customers come through the door. Every summer, familiar faces return while visiting family, popping back into the shop almost like clockwork. She also credits something increasingly rare in Vancouver with helping keep her business alive: stability.
“My landlord’s just old-school Chinatown,” Templeton says. “I can do what I want, and he’s lovely. You don’t feel like a commodity.”
The way Templeton talks about Chinatown feels notably different from the way it’s often discussed elsewhere. Instead of treating it as somewhere to pass through or write off, she talks about neighbours, regulars, and small businesses that have quietly kept showing up. That perspective comes from staying put. In a city where independent shops regularly disappear under rising rents or redevelopment, Templeton has built something remarkably durable.
The same could be said for the products she makes. Occasionally someone brings one of her leather bags into the shop asking if it can be repaired. They’ll explain they only just bought it secondhand. More often than not, it only needs a stitch or two.
“My bags last too long,” she says, laughing.
The vintage side of the business tells a different story. Every picking trip is a reminder of just how much clothing already exists. Templeton sees mountains of discarded garments every week, giving her a firsthand understanding of overconsumption that few ever experience. For her, vintage has never just been about nostalgia. It’s about giving something another life.
She points to something as simple as a white ribbed T-shirt. Someone might have bought it new, worn it a handful of times and donated it. She finds it, cleans it and puts it back on the rack. The next person chooses it from hundreds of other shirts.
“You’re a little more attached to that tee,” she says. “You picked it out of a room full of different things. You kind of feel a little more Cinderella about it.”
Templeton has even had pieces find their way back to her. Years after selling a shirt she’d originally bought at a New York garage sale, she spotted what she was convinced was the exact same one in a Vancouver thrift store. Maybe that’s fitting. After all, Templeton has spent much of her career proving that good things have a way of sticking around a little longer than people expect.
Sometimes it’s a leather bag. Sometimes it’s a favourite jacket. And sometimes it’s a bright pink storefront that’s quietly become one of Chinatown’s constants.
Erin Templeton is located at 511 Carrall Street.