Toronto’s newest home décor retailer puts an equal emphasis on local designers and international creative superstars.
By Claire Butwinick
Large, Medium and Small Glass Bon Bon Jars & Vases by Copenhagen-based designer Helle Mardahl. Photography by Alisair Philip Wiper for Helle Mardahl.
Toronto’s latest home décor boutique, Goodroom, is using retail as a way to break down barriers between local and international design.
Helmed by Canadian multidisciplinary designer Jess Anderson, the shop, which opens in April, is as beautifully designed as the products it offers. Anderson outfitted the space, located in the Junction Triangle neighborhood, with elegantly crafted chairs from England, colorful glass art from Copenhagen, and Canadian-designed letter openers.
“There’s a massive opportunity to create a movement that embraces not only our own independent designers, but also international design, putting them on a level playing field,” Anderson says. “Canadian design always has an ‘apology’ attached to it, but I want to represent it along with well-known designers [from other countries] and have them all seen as good design, not set in separate categories of Canadian and international design.”
Anderson plans to stock Goodroom with Toronto-based designers such as Mercury Bureau and the Canadian- and New York–based duo Müsing–Sellés, alongside globally regarded names such as Toogood, Muller Van Severen, and HAY, and select vintage pieces.
“I want Goodroom to be a designation where people come to discover not only local or international brands,” she says, “but also their own aesthetic and confidence.”
Visit Goodroom this spring at
42 Sousa Mendes Street, Toronto, Canada, M6P 0B2
