Hot Ville Summer
Quartier Is Home puts shirts on your back and the city on theirs
For many, shopping local became en vogue during the pandemic, but in Montreal, this has always been the case. This can be chalked up to the sense of pride and exceptionalism that characterizes Montreal. Here it has always been cool to rock restaurant merch, and people routinely rep the Expos, a baseball team that folded 17 years ago. This local pride takes on many forms in the Montreal fashion scene, but few attempts come off as genuine as those of Setiz Taheri’s Quartier is Home, the flagship brand of La Rue Inspire, “a creative collective focused on community building” as per their website.
In general, Quartier Is Home offers your standard run of streetwear products. We’re talking screen-printed T-shirts and sweatshirts, though their hottest offering seems to be embroidered baseball caps. With slogans like “Take care of yours”, the love Quartier shows to Montreal feels very genuine.
May has been a very busy month for Quartier. Last week I mentioned their “The Block is Hot” shirt-and-slice collab with St. Henri pizzeria Adamo, which came out with fanfare early in the month. Next up was a series of Instagram carousels giving a shout-out and photo-op to a handpicked collection of Montreal businesses, from personal trainer Addison Rigues, to black-owned creative agency Six Cinquieme, to thrift store Theos. Taking 2 IG grid posts to promote others is the kind of platform usage that rebuilds a little optimism in the digital clout-chasing hellscape that we live in. However, Quartier is keeping the pressure up with a collab with Hydroflora, a Montreal shop that aims to sell plants to the sartorially inclined.
Case in point, Hydroflora’s flagship product is a line of planters shaped like various sneakers. The attention to detail on a ceramic Air Max 95 speaks to a product made with love, and purges the tackiness that usually plagues hypebeast homegoods. A KAWS doll it is not.
This shared sense of earnestness makes the Hydroflora X Quartier collab feel very natural. The two brands linked for a shirt and hat combo, with the slogan “The grass is greener where you water it” in a beautiful and appropriate deep green. The collab launched at a creative space in St. Henri, where shoppers left with shirts, hats, and of course, plants.
If things continue at this pace, it’s going to be a hell of a quarter for Quartier.
Thoughts This Week
It must be hell, or I guess purgatory, to own nightclubs in the pandemic… but I’ve been very impressed with the way that Saintwoods, of Apt. 200 and SuWu fame, have pivoted to being a lifestyle brand, with drops and everything… anyway they have a vodka now… which has been in the works since 2013 but should be a nice secondary income stream as they wait for clubs to reopen. Lopez is carrying some New Balance skate shoes… the New Balance skate division is something that I did not know existed… but of course, makes perfect sense… check out Lili’s back catalog if you don’t believe me.
