Welcome to L’Appartement
Stocked with European labels, the new boutique finds common ground between Vancouver and Paris street style.
You could call Rafaella Petrolacci’s new Kitsilano boutique, L’Appartement, her second home. Not simply for its name but also because of accents brought from the founder’s own home: floral wallpaper that had been lying around her house for years and Spanish ceramic tiles left over from her kitchen backsplash.
As a Parisian who relocated to Vancouver 13 years ago, Petrolacci had still been replenishing her closet during trips home. It was there that she envisioned what would later become L’Appartement. She notes that Paris is extraordinary, but she wasn’t seeing the same retail scene in Vancouver. “I created L’Appartement because I couldn’t find a place in Vancouver that felt like me,” she says. “I’ve lived here for a number of years, so I’ve always needed clothes that work for both cities.”
On West Broadway, L’Appartement’s beige-masonry storefront punctuated with chartreuse signage acts as an introduction to the wares inside, where neutral essentials anchor pops of blue, yellow, and red. It’s here that many European labels, not previously available in Vancouver, have now found a place in the local retail scene.
Leon & Harper is a marquee label–a “Parisian cool girl” brand, as Petrolacci describes it–offering romantic dresses and kitschy tees in organic cotton. L’Appartement also captures the essence of Vancouver’s utilitarian streetwear through brands like Le Mont Saint Michel, which crafts artisanal work jackets with meticulous attention to detail. A display table, refurbished from a local jeweller’s workshop, is the store’s centrepiece, boasting an array of accessories–Rivedroite fanny bags, Gas Bijoux handmade jewellery, and Épice Paris bandanas.
The store is an amalgamation of European flair, proven by Petrolacci’s own aesthetic: colour, texture, print, and a handful of neutrals. Through every corner of the space, L’Appartement marries French suavité with Vancouver ease.
Across the shop’s walls hang works by Canadian artists, taken from Petrolacci’s personal collection, though the pièce de résistance is on the back wall: a painting of a Parisian wrought-iron balcony by Vancouver artist Ian Wallace. The founder’s nod to home is, for local shoppers, an homage to the long-admired Parisian ethos, so far away but now a little bit closer.
L’Appartement opened June 17 in Kitsilano, along with its online store, which offers shipping across Canada.
Photographs by Kristine Cofsky.
