When you mention it took a little bit of time and patience to get to where you are now, is this something inherently difficult in our current societal landscape. Everybody knows the Internet has made everybody much less patient in hopes of making things happen quickly. How did this affect some of your decisions?

Arthur: I guess it just took some time and patience with developing relationships with brands as well as developing the direction of the store. With the Internet things definitely move a lot quicker though and I think the way things are developing now with the entire market, the Internet is a necessity. Everybody can stay connected, I am able to speak with suppliers and friends half way around the world without a problem.

Moving forward, you’ve had a great deal of success on collaborative projects with some of the brands you carry. How do you feel about the design aspect of fashion versus the retail aspect? Can we see an in-house HAVEN label in the works down the line here?

Daniel: Besides the collaborations we’ve done, we haven’t had all that much experience with the design aspect. So we are sort of learning it one project at a time. So in that respect, it’s “unknown” and exciting to me. Sort of being out of our comfort zone. Well at least for me. And I like that fact because it forces a person to challenge themselves. Arthur and I have talked many times about an in-house label, but at the moment we are concentrating our efforts on our second retail location which will be revealed soon.

How do you think a second location will change things up for HAVEN as a retailer? Since I know where you’re opening up shop and knowing it’s obviously a larger market than Edmonton, any hesitancy or concerns. While you could essentially blaze a trail in Edmonton, it may not be as easy in your new location, how do you feel about this?

Daniel: Well I might as well let the cat out of the bag since it will be revealed soon anyways. Our second location will be in Vancouver. We are hoping to gain more exposure with our second location. Vancouver is a great international city with lots of creativity flowing through it and we think it would be an ideal choice for our second location. We don’t have too many concerns and we feel pretty confident about the expansion. We did lots of research and made sure the timing was right before we made the choice to finally expand out of Edmonton. So you could say it was a carefully planned move. In that sense, the risks are minimized because we know our market so well. Also, the way that Arthur and I see it, is that there are still lots of voids in the market place. Not only in Vancouver, but the rest of Canada! (and perhaps even North America). Hopefully we’ve set ourselves up to fill those voids.

Arthur: Much like what Daniel touched on, we found that Vancouver was an ideal choice because it is heavily influenced by what is going on in the east. I also have lived in Vancouver in the past so I know the city relatively well. There is no doubt that the market is bigger in Vancouver, however in Edmonton we have more free reign to do what we want without stepping on any toes. There is very little politics in Edmonton, Vancouver is a little more competitive. We will definitely bring something new to the table that is fresh and innovative. The Vancouver shop will definitely be a premium selection of our top tier brands. Also in the coming seasons we will be introducing a handful of exclusive brands that have yet to hit the Canadian market and will be exclusive to Vancouver. I’m sure our customers will be very stoked for what is in store. We are very excited and have very high expectations.

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