Object of Desire: How NEEDS&WANTS Became Toronto's Coolest Cult Brand

NEEDS&WANTS is emerging as a leader of Toronto's creative culture, but designer Sean Brown is just getting started. The Kensington Market neighborhood is a trea

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Sean Brown is leaning over the wooden railing at FIKA, a coffee shop tucked in a three-story teal house in Toronto’s Kensington Market neighborhood, talking to two young men who are standing on the sidewalk. Brown looks younger than his 28 years, with a slim build and strong facial features: a gap tooth and freckles swarming his cheeks and nose. He’s wearing a gray Toronto Blue Jays baseball jersey over a shirt with a “USA” graphic on the front, cuffed denim shorts, navy blue Chuck Taylor sneakers, and a blue bandana strategically tied around his left leg just below the knee. Beside him, his friends and business partners, Sid Singh and Tharan Parameshwaran, sit at a table on FIKA’s patio and wait for Brown to finish speaking with the two obvious fans of the designer. “They were just asking me about starting a clothing line and if I had any advice for them,” he says later.

It’s no accident that we ended up here today. The Kensington Market neighborhood is a treasure trove of vintage clothing shops and often as lively as street markets around the world. It’s also where Brown says it all began for him. Back in 2006, an ex-girlfriend introduced him to Vintage Depot, a thrift store a few doors down from where we’re sitting now, so he could find vintage Lacoste clothing.

“It changed my life,” he says. Since then, the area has been a source of inspiration for his creativity—so much so that he moved to downtown Toronto to live nearby.

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