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Handmade Chic

Tucked away on the upper level above Prince Albert’s Diner is a whimsical little shop called Weezi. When you climb the narrow staircase to enter Lisa Gaverluk’s haven, it’s almost like stepping back in time.

Colorful handmade dresses, shower caps, aprons and slips line the pink walls of this unconventional store — while retro knick-knacks and vintage books-turned-notepads fill the shelves. It all feels pulled from another era, when sundresses were a summer staple for the ladies and hourglass silhouettes were the norm.

“I’m inspired by the 1950s and ‘60s,” says Gaverluk, adding she reworks vintage patterns to create handmade pieces, like one of her current favourite creations — a black and white checkerboard dress with a cherry pattern in the fabric.

Each dress, she says, takes two to four hours to produce — and that’s not counting the creation of a pattern beforehand. It all adds up to about 300 dresses a year. And that means Weezi is a full-time gig for Gaverluk. When she’s not sewing, she’s running her shop on Richmond Street and marketing it through social media and other means.

“From start to finish, it’s about me being hands-on,” says the petite designer.

Gaverluk says price point is one of her biggest hurdles to overcome as a business owner. Customers sometimes scoff over why a Weezi skirt costs around $65 versus a ten-buck skirt at a store like Suzy Shier.

“I can’t compete with slave labour and offshore manufactured production,” Gaverluk explains. For her, it’s about the creative process more than cranking out her products as fast as possible.

“I don’t know if anyone cares,” she adds with a laugh. “Maybe I’m the only one that cares.”

Yet more and more, people do care. While handmade goods are still a niche market, the rise of websites like Etsy.com has brought do-it-yourself clothing and crafts to a global audience. Now, handmade is often trendy rather than taboo.

But for Gaverluk, it’s about bucking trends rather than following them. “I’m against [stores that are] big-box and homogenized,” she says, adding she hopes Weezi is an alternative to the mall.

The little shop has been in business at its current location since 2007, but Gaverluk’s love affair with designing goes way back. She learned to sew as a child and graduated from Fanshawe College’s fashion design program back in 1989. That same year, Gaverluk officially launched her Weezi brand.

And she hasn’t looked back.

“I don’t know whether I’m tenacious or just stupid, but I’m still here,” she says.

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