Welcome back, summer in Toronto. We had another awesome day in the sunshine, romping around on Queen Street West. The Queen Street streetcar was named one of the world’s BEST trolly rides, which completely makes sense as the tracks take you from east to west (or vice versa) from beach, through Cabbage Town, the busy Yonge Street and financial district, past City Hall, the Opera and Ballet, Much Music and the former Speaker’s Corner, along Queen Street’s shopping district, and on to the hip West-end. It’s a ride full of colour and intersecting cultures. For three bucks that’s pretty good value.

For YYZ Imports’ “Endless Summer” collection we hit the streets and found some excellent places to showcase the wares from Jess and Bern, who have brought some very cool pieces home from abroad.

People stopped us on the street to see what was going on, and many of the passers-by wanted to know where they could buy the pieces on display.

I loved this pop of colour so much that I took the whole outfit with me the following week on vacation!

Styling this shoot was the perfect inspiration for my own travels. I even borrowed a few pieces from Jess, one of YYZ’s owners, for my trip to Greece. It was my own personal vacation-look-book, complete with live models.

All these awesome pieces were shot in one afternoon by Carmen Farrell, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Carmen-Farrell-Photography/111550845554690 and are available right now on YYZ Imports’ page. The colours are undeniably vibrant and the pieces add such a punch to brights, or a nice canvas of white. Lastly, another thing I love is that these pieces support two local entrepreneurs who are making travel and style, their passions, a reality.

One of my favourite funny aspects of the day was the makeshift hula hoop changeroom that the girls put together, facilitating some stealthy public outfit swaps. We shot in a park along the busy streetcar route and watching the models pop out of the hoop in new clothes drew a bit of a crowd.  To celebrate, we ended our afternoon at The Beaver – eating chicken tikka nachos. Delish. Cheers to summer and to all the adventures you can handle!

Check out the entire “Endless Summer” collection (available in limited quantities) at http://www.yyzimports.ca/collections/endlesssummer