It’s been a fashion mainstay in Gastown for 30 years and a favourite of those who appreciate quality apparel.
Jennifer MacKay has owned The Block for more than half its lifespan – 16 years, after buying it from previous owner Erian Baxter in 1999.
“It was such a special business,” says Baxter, who started The Block in 1984, just days before her 21st birthday.
“Jennifer’s carried it on,” Baxter praises, “picking really great lines.”
Baxter, who today runs a Kayak rental business in Deep Cove, offered to sell The Block to MacKay after deciding it was time to move on from the Cordova Street boutique.
“She didn’t want to continue, but she didn’t want to see it not be here,” MacKay recalls. “So she approached me with the proposition of taking over, buying it, essentially, from her.”
On the day we meet for an interview, Mackay wears soft coral lipstick, which pops against her long, dark hair and Jane Birkin-style fringe. She is casually put together in Nudie jeans, a plaid Steven Alan shirt, and an Anna de Courcy choker, radiating the same unpretentious air that permeates through the spacious and bright store.
When Baxter made the offer to sell, MacKay had what felt like a minute to decide whether or not to take the ownership leap.
So without much time to prepare, MacKay, then just in her mid-20s, and her friend, designer Isabelle Dunlop, partnered up to buy The Block.
They paid Baxter slowly over the course of a year.
“The banks really wanted nothing to do with us,” MacKay says, laughing. “We started with no money, really, so it was a bit of a turn-key operation. In that way, we were able to keep the store... It’s pretty incredible, the planets were aligned with how this all happened.”
There were many lean days in the beginning, though MacKay has learned the cyclical nature of the retail business over her tenure. But back in '99, there was one particularly rough day where she phoned her mom to tell her she had just $11 in the bank.
The Block has survived, MacKay says, because she has worked hard and learned to listen to her instincts. She had a costly incident early on when she didn’t go with her gut. She was talked into buying dresses she knew weren’t right for the store, and the clothes sat until eventually she had to sell them at a loss. It was a $2,000 mistake, but a priceless lesson.
MacKay bought out Dunlop in about 2007, but she hasn’t been without a partner to bounce ideas off of. Her husband, Kildare Curtis, is also in the retail business – he owns Eugene Choo on Main Street.
These days, MacKay says menswear has really taken off with more men living and working in Gastown. The Block carries many, many contemporary designer lines, but some favourites are Filippa K, Filson, A.P.C., Anna de Courcy, Steven Alan, Surface to Air, and Loeffler Randall. Prices at The Block range from $13 to $1,600.
