Any Canuck who watched cable television between the mid-’90s and mid-aughts was legislatively obligated to have seen a Canadian Heritage Minute that educated us on all the least embarrassing parts of our colonial history. If you remember these as clearly as I do, your images of trading companies include big burly fur trappers, cabins in the woods, and all things Canadiana.
Well, give that fur trapper a shave and a chest wax and turn that cabin into a cottage, and you have the Tuck Shop Trading Co. The company takes all those clichés of how we think about our past and refines, modernizes and urbanizes them. Founded in 2012, the clothing manufacturer creates all its products in the Great White North. They respect the trading company heritage they draw their name from through gorgeous recycled furs, as seen in their cable knit toques with fur poms (check out the 100% cashmere Muskoka or Laurentians styles). Beyond even fur, the whole collection exudes Canadiana, and our love/hate connection with winter, with incredibly soft cable knit scarves named after iconic ski locales like Banff and Whistler, along with equally luxe cowls named after our biggest metropolises, Montreal and Toronto.
What do Canadians do better than any other country? Okay, besides complaining/talking/debating the weather? Cottaging, duh. In celebration of this, Tuck Shop also has Cottage Coats made from 95% wool outershell (the other 5% being leather) and lined with PEI chambray. They’re made for men and women and, of course, totally manufactured in Canada. #AwesomeSauce, eh?
Launched just this year, the Tuck Shop Trading Co. started their City of Neighbourhoods collection. It features 14 toques of urban Toronto neighbourhoods (everything from the Annex to Parkdale to Yorkville; unfortunately, no Scarborough or Missisaugua options… sorry… actually, no I’m not); unisex neighbourhood crew necks; and men’s and women’s neighbourhood crew neck tees.
Check out Tuck Shop Trading Co.’s website for more information and to peruse their odes to Canada.
