{"id":181147,"date":"2026-08-24T19:27:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T19:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/181147\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T19:27:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T19:27:16","slug":"east-vancouvers-erin-templeton-is-built-to-last","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/181147\/","title":{"rendered":"East Vancouver’s Erin Templeton is built to last"},"content":{"rendered":"

Get the best of Vancouver in your inbox, every Tuesday and Thursday.\u00a0Sign up for our free newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When most people are still hitting snooze, Erin Templeton is already elbow-deep in a warehouse somewhere, digging through racks of clothes. It\u2019s a ritual she\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou literally just have to wake up at four in the morning and work your fucking butt off all day long,\u201d Templeton shares with the Straight. \u201cYou\u2019re never going to find the same thing twice.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s probably not the glamorous picture most people have of working in fashion. Then again, very little about Templeton\u2019s career has followed the traditional script.<\/p>\n

Long before \u201ccurated vintage\u201d became a buzzword, Templeton was selling secondhand finds from a tiny corner of a friend\u2019s stall on London\u2019s Portobello Road while studying leatherwork.<\/p>\n

Her first retail space was a small corner table at a friend\u2019s shop with just enough room for a handful of handmade leather bracelets and whatever treasures she\u2019d found while thrifting. That combination of vintage and leather has stayed with her ever since.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s the kind of place where every visit turns up something different, whether that\u2019s a broken-in denim jacket, a perfectly worn leather bag, or Templeton herself hammering hardware onto wallets in the back.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s notice, and together they spent months building up an inventory of the styles Templeton knew she\u2019d struggle to make alone. Now she cuts, sews, and finishes every bag herself, while still spending one day each week picking vintage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to remind everyone that this kooky lady is making all these herself in the back,\u201d she says with a laugh. \u201cMost of the time I\u2019m just trying to get it all done.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a far cry from the wholesale business she once ran. Before the pandemic, Templeton\u2019s leather goods were stocked by around 30 retailers, but years of chasing unpaid invoices and absorbing the financial risk of wholesale eventually wore thin.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy nice-guy approach ended up making me my own worst enemy,\u201d she admits.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf my products had been at a factory somewhere else, if my money had been tied up in orders, I would\u2019ve lost my business,\u201d she says. \u201cLuckily, I could just get behind the sewing machine.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have such a soft spot for Chinatown,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy landlord\u2019s just old-school Chinatown,\u201d Templeton says. \u201cI can do what I want, and he\u2019s lovely. You don\u2019t feel like a commodity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The way Templeton talks about Chinatown feels notably different from the way it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019ll explain they only just bought it secondhand. More often than not, it only needs a stitch or two.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy bags last too long,\u201d she says, laughing.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s about giving something another life.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re a little more attached to that tee,\u201d she says. \u201cYou picked it out of a room full of different things. You kind of feel a little more Cinderella about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Templeton has even had pieces find their way back to her. Years after selling a shirt she\u2019d 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Sometimes it\u2019s a leather bag. Sometimes it\u2019s a favourite jacket. And sometimes it\u2019s a bright pink storefront that\u2019s quietly become one of Chinatown\u2019s constants.<\/p>\n

Erin Templeton is located at 511 Carrall Street.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Get the best of Vancouver in your inbox, every Tuesday and Thursday.\u00a0Sign up for our free newsletter. When…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[415,17,412,413,418,407,414,420,416,423,226,389,419,422,421,417,95],"class_list":["post-181147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-arts","tag-canada","tag-city","tag-culture","tag-dining","tag-entertainment","tag-events","tag-fashion","tag-film","tag-food","tag-lifestyle","tag-music","tag-nightlife","tag-restaurants","tag-shopping","tag-tv","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}