Andrea Hopson and Martha Grace McKimm opened the doors of Hopson Grace in 2015, now after celebrating being open for seven years, they are moving their business to a larger retail space.
Currently Hopson Grace is located at 1120 Yonge Street in Toronto and is opening the doors to its new location at 200 Dupont Street in August 2022. After acknowledging a popular movement in 2010 of people wanting less mass manufacturing and more local, artistic, and handmade products, Hopson and McKimm created Hopson Grace, a place where people can find unique luxury products for their home. Vanessa Lynch of DWSV Realty Inc. negotiated the lease deal for the new store.
Before joining forces, Hopson was the Vice President of Tiffany & Co. and McKimm was working in Public Relations for luxury brands in Retail. With all the traveling McKimm and Hopson do, they started seeing a lot of beautiful designs you could not find here and wanted to bring those luxury items to Canada.
“Our concept was to go and find the most beautiful things in the world that all were beautifully made, high quality, focused on design, and bring them to Canada,” says McKimm.
The new location will include high ceilings, 4,000 square feet of retail space, and will all be on the same floor level making it easier for customers to shop.
“We are very excited about everything being on one floor,” says McKimm. “Right now, we have the shoppable apartment and when you get up here it is wonderful, but a second-floor retail space is a challenge.”
New Wedding Registry Coming Soon
The main reason for the new location is Hopson Grace will also be launching a new wedding registry. The owners launched a wedding registry when they first opened, focusing on tableware. Over the years, the demand for kitchen appliances, bedding, and bath were on the rise so they added a shoppable apartment in 2018. And now, they will need a larger space so they can continue to satisfy customers and make their shopping experience easier.
“We are working on launching a new registry that will be opening sometime in 2022 that will allow customers to register in the comfort in their homes, no matter where they are in North America,” says McKimm.
The new registry will include different tools such as being able to add and remove items, manage your registry online, benefits such as registry completion discount and free shipping. As the registry will be a new platform, Hopson says they will be focusing on developing relationships through phone, email, or even Zoom to register new customers and will provide full support.
One Stop Shop
Hopson Grace wants to make shopping and registries easier by covering products customers will need for every room.
A lot of people looking for a wedding registry might go to a few places, says McKimm. Hopson Grace will have products designed for every room to ensure your entire home will be elegant and beautiful.
“The reason for our expanding offering was due to being able to offer customers beautiful products for every room in the house,” says Hopson. “We are finding things in person when we travel, but through Covid we have continued to source beautiful things around the world by online research, relationship building, and by word of mouth.”
Hopson Grace is dedicated to finding products reflecting on how people are living today: sophisticated and yet casual.
“The contemporary style really drives us,” says McKimm. “We want to mix some of your grandmother’s dishes with some really modern accessories that go with them as we think a great style is a mix.”
Because of this, you will find a variety of collections in their store, including local brands and the new line of Hopson Grace.
“We are super excited to announce that along with the new store opening, that we are also launching our own line of ceramics that are all going to be made in Toronto.”
Hopson and McKimm are working on their own brand, and one of their products will be launching a new line of bedding from Portugal. “It will be 100 percent long staple Egyptian cotton, the most beautiful cotton you can find in the world,” says McKimm.
Other products they will be producing will be candlesticks, flat wear, and they are making placemats in collaboration with local artists with Fan Brothers, local illustrators.
Local brands will also include an OCAD grad named the Woodsman’s Daughter. She will be creating serving boards for Hopson Grace. They also have two local wood turners to produce bowls, candle sticks, and wine stoppers.
A Chance to Share Stories
“Everyone loves a good love story,” says Hopson.
As community is important to Hopson and McKimm, they feel like it is important to share stories of customers who use their wedding registry from how the couple met to the details of their wedding.
“We are excited about all the couples registering with us and we want to share their weddings with our customers, and they love it because they love reading about a local story. They are thrilled about us telling their story about how they met, and about their wedding day,” says McKimm.
Hopson says it is a great way to celebrate the community, and by sharing their customers story, they can also be included in their journey. “It is exciting to be a part of a couples most exciting event of their life and to see them grow with us,” says Hopson.
Hopson Grace is anticipating having a soft launch at the beginning of August with a more formal celebration in September. “We have the keys, the designer, the contractor, and we are just really excited to get going,” says Hopson.
