Discover a hidden gem in Montreal: a vintage curated boutique blending timeless fashion with local flair. Featuring exclusive photos and an intimate interview with one of the owners.

Take three

I had the privilege to interview Alexandra, 1/3 owner of Take Three Boutique.

PS: Thank you to Sarah, Kim & Alexandra, for contributing to this project

Take Three Boutique: A Fusion of Vintage and Personal Style

Take Three Boutique is a vintage and independent fashion shop founded by three like-minded individuals—Sarah, Kim, and the interviewee— Aly. Their shared love for secondhand fashion and unique aesthetics led them to merge their styles into a boutique that embraces sustainability while offering a curated mix of classic, edgy, and contemporary pieces.

From Online Beginnings to Brick-and-Mortar

The boutique began as a Shopify-based online store before expanding to pop-up events, which connected each founder with Montreal’s vintage community. Aly launched her journey during the pandemic, while Alexandra utilized her background in fashion merchandising and a marketing certificate from McGill University to establish the brand. As the business grew, the transition from e-commerce to a physical storefront felt like a natural evolution, as the three founders realized their styles complemented one another perfectly.

Sustainability and Thoughtful Curation

Take Three Boutique prioritizes sustainability by focusing on secondhand pieces and upcycled designer items. They use compostable shipping materials and repurpose store elements like tags to minimize waste. Their selection process involves a keen eye for quality, timeless fashion, and personal aesthetics rather than following fast fashion trends.

Personal Style and Fashion Research

Each founder brings a distinct influence: sporty-chic, cottage-core, and true vintage, creating a well-rounded collection. The boutique keeps an eye on trends—such as the resurgence of boho fashion—while ensuring their offerings remain timeless. They follow fashion runways, industry insights, and color trends to stay current.

Fashion Icons and Inspiration

Their inspirations range from Kate Moss and Aaliyah to Rihanna and Vanessa Paradis, reflecting a blend of edgy, effortless, and timeless fashion influences.

Looking Ahead

As Take Three continues to grow, its mission remains clear: to provide a curated, sustainable shopping experience that celebrates individuality and style.

Click to follow their Instagram

Message from Me to You

I frequently shop in Montreal’s Mile End, a neighbourhood known for its unique finds and impeccable attention to detail. On a recent visit, I discovered Take Three, a boutique that immediately caught my eye. Although I initially chose not to make a purchase—wanting to avoid carrying bags all day—I found myself drawn back to the store for my seasonal haul.

The boutique felt like a curated fashion gallery, with each piece thoughtfully selected and beautifully displayed. It was evident that the collection had been assembled with care and intention. As I inquired about the store’s history, I learned that Take Three began as a series of pop-ups before evolving into a permanent storefront on one of Montreal’s major shopping streets.

I am truly inspired by the dedication, perseverance, and creativity behind this venture. The founders’ journey is a testament to the power of hard work and vision, and their success adds yet another gem to Mile End’s vibrant fashion scene.

Transcript of Interview

R: Okay, I’ll get started then. Thank you. Yeah, so if you wanna just tell me a little bit about your boutique. I know when I met you, you mentioned that it started as an online platform and it sort of grew until you were able to, um, make it sustainable on, you know, Salo Hall, which is. Which is amazing. What was that process like for you and your team?

A: Yeah, so just basically just to clear it up a little bit, uh, I had my own independent brand that was online and the other girls, didn’t. We all did sell vintage, like altogether previously, so when we met up for that, it was really just combining our, all our brands in one, which created take three.

R: How did you meet the other two girls and, sorry, what are the names again?

A: Yeah, so it’s Sarah and Kim. Uh, we actually met into the vintage community, so we all sold, um, at the same vintage shop at the time, and we just met through like doing different vintage popups. So really just the community as a whole got us closer and we worked at the same vintage store, so we got to know each other a bit more.

And I think we all have different styles, like of our own personal branding, but somehow we felt like all our styles kind of completed One type of like look or I guess, yeah, one type of shop that you can say it like has a variety of different styles, but it kind of all coincides into one. So that was fun to really see our vision, like just mesh well together.

But yeah, we met through the vintage community actually.

R: That’s nice. You mentioned just now a little bit about your personal style, all the other individual’s personal styles. How would you describe your style?

A: Uh, so I’d say my personal style is, uh, a big balance between Sporty and Chic.

That’s actually like my. Slogan for my personal brand, your balance of sporty and chic. Uh, just ’cause I’m very influenced. I love my whole family and myself have been very, uh, into sports. I guess since I was a, I was young and I think that reflects a lot into my style. So I just like a lot of more sporty brands, I guess you can say.Nike, Adidas, and I kind of incorporate it with my chic, other side of my wardrobe. So I guess skirts, I just like the balance of femininity and masculinity a lot. So yeah, I’d say sporty chic is definitely how I’d describe my style. A lot of like baggy silhouettes. But also you’ll find me in like slimmer silhouettes, but I’ll probably be wearing a cool sneaker, I guess, to kind of balance the look

R: For sure. I, I actually love that style as well. Mm-hmm. Love, I mean, some of my friends have said that I looked like Adam Sandler. I don’t know if you know,

A: That’s the biggest compliment though.

R: Thank you. Yeah. Thanks I. Okay.

A: The biggest compliment like,

R: Oh my tag’s still in here. I wore it for the interview.

A: Oh, that’s so cute. No one had to see that.

R: It’s fine. Honestly, I’ll probably keep it in.

A: So actually a really nice pattern top too.

R: I love, for me, I love mixing like jewelry, especially to add like the femininity into like the. Sandler Look, that’s something that I, I just love about the mix match.

So just speaking about vintage, I feel now there’s a, a whole new trend of thrifting and I think it’s sort of re revamped in the last few years, where before maybe it wasn’t as popular or as common, but now there’s thrift halls, people are more into vintage shopping, and I think that a lot of it has to do with the sustainability aspect.

Do you see that being a pattern with, with the mission and value, with, how does sustainability melt into take three boutique?

A: Yeah, so that’s the biggest part, I guess you can say, is everything being secondhand. Uh, even, uh, as far as like the designers go that we carry, like our local designers, a lot of it is from a recycled materials or dead stock materials.

So nothing’s really new fabric. So I think just like that whole circular motion of people shopping really secondhand is what Take three is all about. But um, I guess that’s not really something that makes us stand out. But we do fall into the sustainable shopping experience. We do re like on our end, we do reuse a lot of, uh, items like tags and, you know, we try to just like reuse things that we can on the way even to like ship online. It’s all compostable mailers. Other than that, yeah, I think like the, the main. The main one is the fact that you’re just buying something that’s secondhand.

R: Giving it new life. Giving it new life.

A: Exactly.

R: Mm-hmm. So I know that, I guess I’ve already asked you what your personal style would be, but, and I also feel that sys, uh, sorry, that, uh, I’m nervous.

A: Don’t, don’t be. Let’s just like talk. It’s chill. I’m stuttering off my words.

R: Okay. I know that with thrifting and shopping sustainable and all of those boutiques that are, that are on St. Laurent. Specifically, I feel like there’s almost a new trend to not look like a “trend”. Do you find that that’s list. Something that you’ve seen, or if you do find that there are trends, are there any that are upcoming that you really wanna try, that you’re excited for, for, for spring 2025?

A: Yeah, so I think it’s okay to follow trends to some extent, right? I mean, the, the bad side of it is that, you know, you look at it, I like a trend cycle where it’s in one month and then the other month you’re over it.

I think that’s the unhealthy part of trends, but it’s okay to like a certain aesthetic and. Incorporate, you know, your pieces that you find secondhand shopping and add it in there. Especially with vintage, there’s so many one-on-one pieces that it’s hard to even want to take part of the trend, right?

There’s an, there’s like a crazy pattern shirt that I might have and I’m just like, I don’t care if this is in or not, let me wear it. So I think, I don’t think we follow trends to that extent. But I am very into like seeing what the aesthetic of the season is.

For example, the upcoming one that I’m excited for is boho.

It was like a super popular trend in the early 2000, 2000 tens, I guess you can say. Like that whole Tumblr era and the fact that it’s coming back. For some people it never left. You know what I mean? It could be. It was part of your personal style this whole time. I am excited to like incorporate a bit of boho into my own personal style and into the shop.

I think it’s important to follow trends as a boutique owner. I mean, I do still wanna source things that I know the girlies are gonna wanna wear. I know polka dots is gonna be a big thing. It’s already a big thing. So yeah, we do have a radar on trends and I do incorporate it, but I do think it’s impo.It’s important to look at the bigger picture and just add it into your wardrobe, but you don’t have to just. Straight up. Always just follow the trends. Just pick and choose which ones you like,

R: For sure. How do you, how do you follow the trends? Like as an owner? Um, how do you keep up with, with what everyone’s wanting?

A: Yeah, but I’m big on like fashion runways. I love, um, if I don’t watch it live, I’ll watch it the next day on YouTube or I’ll just look at Vogue. There’s like a whole, Vogue is the Vogue app is great for just seeing like every designer possible’s runway. So it’s just so fun. You can go through the images and I kind of just, I pick and choose from what I see is trending.

And then obviously, uh, just getting more into a deep dive with it by like reading articles that I see online. Obviously TikTok, you know, like the fashion girlies talking, their trends think a lot of it is just straight from the runway. I love to like in. Observe. I think it’s fun. It’s a fun tactic. Yeah.

R: That’s great. I just, I’ve never really thought about how people absorb what’s, what’s new. So even hearing about a Vogue app, I’m like, oh wow, that sounds so cool. Like, I wanna try that. Like I wanna see,

A: I love that visual, like it’s fun that you can literally just. See it. And um, what I was talking with, with my partners as well is, you know, we’re so into trends and different patterns, but what we can look at as well is what colors are they incorporating into the runway.

So instead of being so consumed by the trend, or boho is in, from what I just said, or polka dots are in, you can just kind of also follow what colors they’re using in the runway. So let’s say one of them is, I don’t know, green and brown, and then you just see it’s super in. So why not just throw in some green and brown in your wardrobe and call it a day?

You know? So it’s fun to look at it and not just. Come up with like a whole trend. Just look at the color scheme, could help people with style

R: For sure. That I’m gonna look out for the boho style nail that you’ve mentioned it. I’m gonna like see if I can spot it with any of, any, anyone out there wearing it.

So I, I saw on your website that you have a background marketing and, and I know your experience with your own personal business. Did you go to school for that?

A: Yeah, so I did a, uh, certificate in marketing at McGill. I graduated in 2022, so the whole point with that was as well to incorporate it into my own business, but I was still open at that point.

I wasn’t for fully fixed on doing this full time. So I. I did it in the sense of like just keeping my options open and hopefully work for myself or if not work for another brand that I can just use some marketing tools, uh, with them. Yeah. So I have that. And then again, working for yourself. Really just you, you really learn by just having it all, like all the sources like, on you and just kind of like saying, okay, “what do I have to do with this?” It’s, it’s a lot of, uh, like school helped, but I think hands on, do, like having it in front of you, having to run a business, you’re really like, okay, this is what marketing is. Like what am I doing to market my own business? So that helped a lot as well.

R: Yeah. Just to go back to the timeline of everything. Think, first of all, I have a question about McGill. Yeah. So I know you, you, you graduated. What, what are the, if you can name like two or even just like one key concept that you took away from that marketing program and applied for your business, like what would that be?

A: There was my favorite class, which honestly they should have a whole as sorry for saying a whole ass program. It’s okay. I’m sorry. They should have a whole program dedicated to this. I’m sure it’s gonna come in the next few years because that’s the future. But it was a digital media class and my teacher was brilliant and really, really took a deep dive on even just website building.

So I think having, I have Shopify for my online business and just the little pointers that he was giving out helped so much like just. Saying example, as soon as you land on a business page, like as a consumer, you’re your first, you wanna see where to shop. So you would just see something simple as like, if there’s no shop button right directly into the viewer’s point of view, then that automatically makes you more likely to lose a sale.

Then like it being so easy for them to navigate through. So I think, yeah, that was a huge key point to like, to really make sure your business page, your website is dumbed down for the consumer and have to, it has to be so accessible for them to shop on. I think that really helped along with, um, market, um, email marketing and what else?

I think just getting to know your target audience and, and the brand identity. Is, uh, what they also taught us a lot of, I found that the most interesting and then we’d do a lot of case studies, guess on marketing. I don’t, can’t remember exactly what they were, but that was interesting as well.

R: Well, that’s really interesting. Yeah. Okay. I, I wouldn’t picture like case studies like that, that’s just not where my mind would go with marketing, but that’s really interesting. As someone who hasn’t gone to school. For marketing, but who’s interested in fashion? I love the expression of it, and right now I’m in a course, so I’m trying to learn a little bit about the digital media side, but it’s really interesting hearing that that was a course that really stood out to you because it makes sense with where the world’s moving and understanding how to navigate web pages in the for the consumer is gonna be so important because now you can’t have a webpage or you can’t have a business without a webpage.

A: Exactly.

R: So that makes sense.

A: It is. I really wish, like if they come out with a core, um, a whole program on that I like might just take it just to say, ’cause it’s just so interesting.And then I really, I find a lot of my other classes were grades, but they didn’t really sink in as much as that because that one was a lot more relatable I guess to myself to having an online business. But yeah.

R: Right. Yeah. And. That makes sense. And back to your business, just timeline wise, how did you start, how did you just start your business?

Because I know you met Kim and Sarah through the vintage community, but it had to take you from being a graduate to having your own business, to finding this community.

A: Mm-hmm.

R: So I guess what my question is, is what was the first step in making your own business? Separate to take three, boutique take three.

A: Yeah. So again, it kind of, I think faith has a lot to do with it, or just the universe, I guess you can say. Just everyone lost their jobs in 2020, including myself. I was working, uh, at the Bay at the time for Tommy Hilfiger, so I was doing visual merchandising. Oh. I was always in fashion. And, uh, I always had this idea of wanting to start, uh, vintage and at this point I was doing popups on the side during the weekends.

And then once Covid hit, I lost my job and I had, all the time in the world, like a lot of people did. And I’m like, Hey, you know what? I took it as a, as a sign that I need to start this and there’s nothing else for me to do. I’m not gonna be able to work anywhere for a couple months. Let’s just try to open this website.

So I gathered all like the clothing that I had, uh, collected from like popups and stuff. And I started taking my time and taking pictures even like around my house, outside, just like. There was nowhere to go, right? So I was just trying to make it the best out of it, and I was learning how to make my Shopify, um, website at the same time.

And then at one point, I remember it was in July, I am like, you know what? Let me just announce that I’m dropping it. So I was just in the meantime brainstorming. Again, brand identity things. If you see my brand in the beginning, it’s so different than what it is now, but you get to find yourself and your, your target audience, I guess.

But this was five years ago, so it definitely changed, but. That’s what got me somewhere, you know, like just sticking to my plan and saying, okay, this is it. Try and, you know, just straight off the back. I dunno if it helped that no one else was doing anything with their lives, but like a lot of people were on the computer.

So I think the response was, was great. So it gave me a bit of a motivation, keep, keep going. And then from online again, I was just introduce myself to more pop-up opportunities and that led the store that I was part of selling. And yeah, it’s just like baby steps really. And just following your gut, I guess.

I do think it was all lined up for a reason. It was definitely a risk at the same time, but I think it did help, unfortunately, that the world had ended for, or was on a pause for a bit. So it really gave me the time to sink in and and work on this brand. Yeah.

R: Well, I’m glad it worked out for you and. I guess the universe has a funny way of making things kind of turn out with your intuition as well as your ability to kind of like, keep going and keep moving and saying, this is, I’m gonna grow during covid.

A:Yeah.

R: And not, not do anything. So that’s really, that’s really inspirational for take three. How do you decide what, how do you curate the store? How do you find who’s gonna be in it and Yeah.

A: So that too, like we really didn’t decide on an aesthetic. It just. So happened that it meshed so well together. But that’s what I know from meeting these girls.

Like I think one thing that we all liked about each other was that our creation from the beginning, I had respect for Sarah, had respect for Kim. Like it’s very hard to have a, a niche aesthetic, I guess you can say, in the vintage game. Just really like a certain vendors. Aesthetic. And I, I think we’re all different in our own way, but together it just completes each other.

And that’s what we get from customers saying that they love the curation. It’s just a perfect balance of edginess, but you still have, uh, a bit of classic core pieces, a lot of vintage pieces. Kim loves to incorporate true seventies pieces that just work well in our store. Sara’s more cottage core, I guess, where I’m more, uh, edgy, sporty.

So I think, think just all of our styles together make Take Three. It what Take three is a plan for that, but it just. It just worked. Yeah. We also realized with time, you know, ’cause we were used to selling at other stores that weren’t as created, I guess having your own brick and mortar. I guess we realized also that we pay attention to detail and quality a lot.

So even if we love a piece that, you know, to us it’s like nostalgic or, I don’t know, it’s just something we would maybe wear, but it’s a bit pilled or just. Not up to standard. We’re learning to not fully take everything in ’cause it just doesn’t look great as an image. We just want, we’re looking more into detail as we continue the boutique.

I think that’s an important aspect that we’re adding into the creation as well. Mm-hmm. That’s beautiful.

R: One question that I was really excited to ask you about is who are your fashion icons?

A: Yes. So, yeah, I had asked the girls to tell me since, you know, they’re not on call right now, but, um, I’d say for me it would be Kate Moss is the nineties for me, like nineties model look, a lot of bojo.

Yeah. She’s just a queen for that. I’d say on my sporty side it would be Aaliyah, so the r and b singer class. Okay. In the nineties, a lot of like sporty. Uh, iconic looks from her, uh, new school at say Rihanna for sure. I love like the sporty she vibe. Um, and Sarah had mentioned, uh, Vanessa Pai. It’s uh, one of, um, I think it’s Johnny Depp’s, ex-wife, Lily Rose Depp’s mother.

R: Oh, I love Lily rose’s. Style. Yeah. So if it’s anything like her mom, then I would like it.

A: It explains it. Explains it. Exactly. Okay. Um, yeah, that’s who we hand.

R: That’s, that’s so cool. I, I recognize most of them, but for those who I don’t know, I’m gonna Google. That’s great. Is there anything that you wanna, the potential readers, viewers, about Take three or any advice for, for women who are looking to, to start their own business?

A: I think the best advice is you’re always gonna, you’re your biggest critic or for I’m for sure my biggest critic. And, uh, there’s ups and downs, but I think just following and being consistent is the biggest key. You can’t always listen to what’s going on in your head. You’re not good enough or is this better than so-and-so, like, you just can’t compare, stay in your lane and just keep pushing.

I think our head gets in the way and a lot of things and um, it’s really important to just. Be consistent because there’s so many ideas that you’re locking up in your head and you’re not actually pursuing, but just pursuing them gets you one step further to actually completing your goals as a business owner.

I think having partners also really helps. It’s really hard to take on everything on your own, and I think it just leads to a burnout if you’re not, this is, if you’re not financially boarding like a whole team, you know, like there’s some people. Who can afford to have a whole entourage in their business.

But if you’re an independent worker alone, I think having a team is very, very important and consider.

R: Yeah, it sounds like it kind of balances out any of the tasks and relieves any stress,

A: and you wanna enjoy your passion and not end up hating it. So I think splitting up tasks and seeing who’s better than in what, and like really,Doing what you’re good at with a team is very sustainable in the long run.

R: Yeah. Knowing your strengths, I guess. Mm-hmm. And that’s with time, you know, you’ll get to know it with time For sure.

Outro

So, hey guys, my name is Ali and I’m co-owner of Boutique Take three. You can find us on Rue St. Laurent in Montreal.

We carry curated, A selection of curated vintage and Local designers. You know where to find us. It’s at 5 5 9 4 St. Boulevard.

Three.

Location

5594 boul. Saint-Laurent, H2T 1S8, Montreal, QC, Canada

Hours

Monday — Friday

11 AM — 6 PM

Saturday — Sunday
11 AM — 5 PM

Contact

Boutiquetakethree@gmail.com