Store Review: Fortknight Men's Boutique

Guitars, fountain pens, shoe polish, pocket squares, shaving and drinking paraphernalia, handmade bags, wine barrels. What do they all have in common? They can all be found at Fortknight Men's Boutique in Gastown. Okay, maybe the wine barrels aren't for sale (or are they?) but everything else you can find here, and more.

Walking past his store window and looking in, I just had to go inside and see what this place was all about. I asked Tyler, as a retailer, how can he tie together all these seemingly dis-connected products and sell them under a single roof?  Sell a PRS guitar with a bottle of Taylor of Old Bond Street shaving cream? How about a made in  Austria decanter with a nice beeswax shoe polish from Paris? A Jet City guitar amp with a Graf von Fabre-Castell fountain pen? What was his retail theme? His answer was simple...

"I sell what I love. I love guitars, and I love pocket squares and fountain pens." Enough said. Simple answer. By the purposeful and impeccable way Tyler was put together, he communicates well what he means.  Whatever he likes he sells...and he likes quality: quality fit, quality build, simple, powerful and 'to the point' items for men. In fact, the first thing I noticed while talking was his classy 38mm dial Jaeger-LeCoultre pointer date automatic watch on a alligator leather strap and double fold buckle. Not too flashy. Minimalist and understated. Classy. This theme plays throughout his store...

As I continued talking with Tyler and we compared notes on all the things we were both passionate about, I began meditating on Tyler's retail (and life) philosophy.  It was then that I realized that his store and my blog have a lot in common.  My blog appears to about random things. I have so many interests that I couldn't pick a singular theme.  In the end, I decided to take pictures of whatever interested me: bikes, signs, graffiti, people...all random, but all under one blog roof.

To have a successful blog, I was told one must have a singular theme, or else it's just too general. Find a niche. That's partially true. But the glue that holds this blog and these images together is me. I hope it works by me explaining each image and how it all flows with my overall view of the world.  I love the concept of communication and how it's accomplished via multiple mediums: signs, graffiti, fashion, architecture, body language, and of course pictures!

So thanks Tyler for an awesome store with random items. A men's boutique. A very unique concept.  You are definitely the glue that ties all these items together.  So pick-up your flask, pocket square, shoe polish, watch, guitar amp and shaving razor all under one roof at Fortknight Men's Boutique in Gastown!!


P.S. Since we're on the theme of randomness, I've decided to add one more random feature to my blog: store reviews.  Fortknight is my first real store review!!