And we’re back with Volume THREE from Toronto. This is only the 2nd city after London to get multiple volumes in this street art series so far. It’s a great honor 😂 and one that Toronto is extremely well deserving of. This is undoubtedly one of the best cities in the WORLD for street art, which is a designation that I am more and more qualified to bestow with each passing month.
In vol. 2 we were in Kensington Market and Ossington. Now, we’re going to move a but closer to “downtown” Toronto, and explore an area called the Fashion District.
You could be forgiven if you were a bit put-off by the term “The Fashion District” … speaking for myself personally, this name conjures up an image of glitz, glamor, and Derrick Zoolander that I do not identify with… but it actually doesn’t have much to do with fashion.
You see, in the early 1900s, because of its proximity to shipping ports and rail lines, this area was home to a large number of textile and fabric factories and warehouses. It was actually called the Garment District originally, which is a name I am more used to hearing. I’m not sure what prompted the change, but these days, it goes by the name ✨Fa$h1oN✨ … ok, I need to stop making myself seem so unfashionable. I dress well, I swear!
This area was also, historically, a Jewish district, but most of this population relocated to other parts of Toronto following WWII. Today, this area is full of sparkly new high-rise condos, cool restaurants, and fun nightclubs. It’s a cool, fashionable area! I would hang out here. And given that this is where my hosts this weekend lived, it was “home base” for me during my time in Toronto. Big thanks to N&M for taking me in and braving the cold with me. 🫶
I mentioned this in the previous article, and I’ll mention it again here. It was deathly cold during my visit. I didn’t expect to be taking so many pictures so I didn’t pack gloves and my hands were getting worryingly cold and stiff and at multiple points during these shoots. But that didn’t decrease my love for Toronto even one bit. On the contrary, the coziness of escaping the sub-zero nights in a local Ramen place or a cool bar makes my memories of this trip all the warmer. So, now that we’ve set the scene, please enjoy another batch of pipin’ hot murals…
As always, I have done my best to track down as many of the talented artists responsible for the murals shown above as possible. I must say, my success rate for the particular gallery was a bit lower than average, so if you can identify any missing credits, please reach out and let me know so I can update this article accordingly!
Son of Aquarius Limited (@sonofaquarius)
Paul Glyn-Williams (@sumartist)
April Showers (@april_showers_art)
D.Terra (@d.terrastencils)
That’s it for Toronto, and for North America this time around! Now it’s time for me to escape the intense Canadian cold and jet back over to Europe to tell everybody who “it’s not really THAT cold.”
If you’re interested in exploring more street art, these buttons will get you were you need to go.
It was a random walk down a few alleyways in Toronto in 2016 that began my obsession with street art. At that time, this website was already well-established… but this was the first time I had taken so many pictures of murals that I felt the need to give them their own article. You can read vol. 1 here. Fast-forward almost 10 years, and this has become perhaps my favorite series on this website.
Well, today is a special one. It’s time for a return to—NOT ONLY the city that started it all for this series on street art—but the EXACT PLACE in that city. Almost 10 years later, we’re back into Toronto for vol. 2, and we’re going to start in the same area where I originally fell in love with collecting murals: Kensington Market.