I was supposed to be at brunch.
Instead I ended up in a vintage store with my sister — somewhere in Toronto, a city I've been figuring out for four years — and found something I'd been searching for for months. Exactly what I wanted, from a boutique I'd never heard of, three kilometres from my apartment.
I started talking to a group of women in the store.
Different cities. Different countries. Same problem — hours lost, twenty-seven tabs open, DM'ing store pages on Instagram, watching things sell out before they could even get to checkout.
The boutiques were incredible. The inventory was incredible. They weren't unknown. They were undiscoverable.
This is not a Toronto problem. This is not a Canada problem. Extraordinary boutiques exist in every city in the world and the right buyer will never find them simply because there is no single place to look.
I have ADHD. I hyperfixate — and once I saw that problem I couldn't unsee it.
The buyer and the boutique both deserve better.
IGAN VNTG is built for the buyer with twenty-seven tabs open and the boutique that should be on all of them.
— Saijal Nagi P.S. I'm still that girl in the store. I just built the thing I was looking for.