You Can Support These Vancouver Queer Businesses This Black Friday
Black Friday is upon us and we all know it's that time to hunt for your favourite items and deals. Why not support queer businesses at the same time? Here are some ways you can support queer businesses at this time.
How Do I Support Queer Business Right Now?
Supporting queer business means you'll help foster a vibrant LGBTQ+ community that can do more than just its appearance. Queer community can facilitate special services that cater to the community for vulnerable population that reply on them. Making a small purchase at your local LGBTQ+ store is already a good way to help sustain local businesses and the values that they stand for. You can also make donations to queer media organizations, youth support organizations and local charity chapters that offer help in queer space. Check out What’s On Queer BC’s comprehensive list of LGBTQ+ organizations in British Columbia: https://whatsonqueerbc.com/woq-bc-stories/bc-lgbtq-community-resources
Our Picks for a Queer Black Friday
Sometimes, it is hard to seek out queer businesses in Vancouver, which is why we're giving you our list of small, queer businesses for a quick glance. Here are some of our top picks for local British Columbia and Vancouver LGBTQ+ businesses that you can support right now.
Jewelry for your Sweetie
Over the Rainbow Enterprises offers lovely silver jewelry. All of Jayne’s jewelry is handcrafted, with love and care, in her studio in Langley, B.C.
http://overtherainbowenterprises.ca/
Pork Pie Brand
Luc Latulippe is a gay artist living in Vancouver, currently a storyboard artist at Nickelodeon. He also owns Pork Pie store, that infuses his whimsical, cartoon-ish sketches and gay men sketches into home products. Latulippe's latest creation is doodle masks, with depictions of buff gay men. And a pretty vibrant colour scheme to go with it, too. The masks are double-layered, washable and included with a carbon filter. If you're looking for face masks with a touch of gayness and whimsicalness, this is the item you want to check out.
https://porkpiebrand.com/products/facemasks
Brandy Mars Design
Brandy Mars Designs is a LGBTQ+ small business based in Vancouver offering adorable queer representation for all of our house decoration needs. Expect to see your favourite lesbian and gay lovers holding hands and be more than friends. Their designs are also printed on a variety of mediums so you won't be tied down by options, from throw pillows to wall artworks. Take a look at the link below and browse to your heart's contents.
Peau de Loup
Peau de Loup is a Vancouver clothing company that caters to diverse body types. Their clothing style is self-branded: "button-downs for androgynous, butch, tomboy style". One Google review mentions their clothing quality: "They use cast off fabrics to make button downs for non-binary and androgynous bodies, and they do it well!"
Womyn's Ware
Why get mental frustration when you don't get the deal you want while you can get a physical satisfaction? Womyn's Ware specialises in sex toys that cater to diverse body types and needs. They offer "fast, discreet mail order" and "superior customer service" that customers often look for. If you don't feel like having your toys shipped, Womyn's Ware also have a retail store at 896 Commercial Drive, Vancouver B.C that you can visit.
Your Open Closet
While you're browsing Womyn's Ware, you might as well see their cousin - Your Open Closet. As Womyn's Ware grow, so are the needs of their patrons. Hence, Your Open Closet was founded to adapt more needs for queer folks. The store offers a variety of choices in gender-neutral clothing and undergarments.
The Rainbow Store
In the 1980s there was a Rainbow Store on West 4th in Vancouver. WOQ Owner Jude Goodwin would make sure to drop in every time she visited family in the city. It was one of her favourite shops! When Jude established What’s On Queer BC five years ago she was excited to include an online Rainbow Store for the community. The fabulous Rainbow Store offers a variety of rainbow merchandise: rainbow masks, rainbow harness, rainbow pants and rainbow on everything. Hooray for rainbows!
A lot of the products are set up as Amazon.ca affiliate so items purchased through the store will help us continue running and promote this website for the queer community in British Columbia.
Recently, Jude has also started to include Local Rainbows where you’ll find links to local shops.
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Ian Nguyen is a 20-something gaysian who is compiling the stories of our lives. Say hi to him at heythereian.com or Twitter: @ianwith1n
Photo by Paul Felberbauer on Unsplash