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Purchasing Department
By Maureen Spencer
Where in the West do you like to shop? Every month, we'll send one style-smart westerner out to find three would-be buys: a no-brainer, a creative sketch and an only-in-your-dreams object of desire.
Life in small town Saskatchewan was overdue for its own TV show by the time Corner Gas came along. Not that the show is meant to be about Rouleau, Sask., where it's filmed, or any other Prairie village. The creators, led by comedian Brett Butt, were aiming for a show about nothing that could happen anywhere; Seinfeld had New York, so they invented a place called Dog River. All the same, Corner Gas, viewed by a million Canadians every week, is particularly admired by Prairie folk for characters that ring true to Saskatchewan sensibilities.
Gabrielle Miller, as Lacey, plays a character trying to figure out the nuances of local culture. She's the Toronto transplant who inherits the gas station's cafe but discovers that seemingly innocuous decisions, like painting the walls a new colour, will spark a chilly protest. Miller will also be the fish out of water in Robson Arms, a kind of comedic Melrose Place about Vancouver's West End due to start airing in 2005. On that show she plays Bobbi, a jazzercise instructor from Regina who doesn't understand why the West Coast preferences is for downward dogs over grapevines.
In Fact miller's real home base is Vancouver's Strathcona neighborhood, where she shares a turn-of-last-century character house with her boyfriend and a small dog. She admits to being a decor junkie and style voyeur, going for walks and inconspicuously looking in windows, her shopping hours are divided among Regina, Vancouver and L.A. (In TV"S capital, Miller has a part on a third show called Alienated. Are you getting the theme here?)
TO BUY
A capex by Cherry Blossom, $45.
The no-hesitation purchase on Miller's list is "capex" by the Vancouver company Cherry Blossom. "It speaks to all the girliness in me," says Miller. (Full disclosure: the women behind Cherry Blossom are also Miller's good friends. She has known the actors/designers, Stacey Grant and Deanna Milligany, since teenhood.) So what's a capex? Kind of a poncho, but "more of a 1950s lady cape that you might have tea in," says Grant. you can also wear it as a skirt - which is both odd and convenient. At Fine Finds, 604.669.8325, and Barefoot Contessa, 604.879.1137, both in Vancouver.
TO TRY
A Barcelona Chair, $1,500, and ottoman, $850.
Mies van der Rohe's classic Barcelona chair is ubiquitous in black or white, which is exactly why Jane McFadden, owner of Fine Finds, went for chestnut brown. Fine Finds - a fixture on Miller's Yaletown hit list - has shifted from being mainly a furniture store specializing in Indonesian wood pieces (which are still available) to a lifestyle boutique selling accessories, handbags, gifts and clothes. The Chair, Miller explains, would address "the duality of my personality. It feels strong and masculine."
TO DIE FOR
Tribe of Trees, $5,000.
now that we're used to the lifestyle boutique concept, its no longer surprising to be contemplating a $10 headscarf in one corner of a shop when your attention is hijacked by a $5,000 painting across the room. But the budgetary leap doesn't always follow. Miller therefore filed this large-format painting , Tribe of Trees (41 inches by 58 inches, oil on printed canvas), in the To DIe For category. It appealed for its serene colours and harmonious nature. Newlove, an Ontario artist, experiments with the interplay of words and pictures; this pieces is meant to portray "ideas of isolation, personality and relationship." At Fine Finds.