A NEW FLAGSHIP STORE
MAIWA GRANVILLE ISLAND
A little bit of history from Maiwa's Founder, Charllotte Kwon:
In 1986 I opened a store on Granville Island.
I was a young, ambitious artisan working as a silk painter. At that time Granville Island was a hotbed of new ideas - it was, literally, an island in the middle of the city. We were all working hard to help Granville Island deserve its reputation as the artisan heart of Vancouver. A few years of being a successful artisan entrepreneur combined with some international travel gave me an epiphany. All over the world incredibly skilled artisans were abandoning their craft. Global markets were flooding the world with cheaply made goods and much traditional craft would not survive.
I knew what I had to do. Maiwa as it exists today is the result of thirty-five years of dedication to an idea of inspired, skilled craft.
Now Maiwa is shuffling its feet. We are combining our two stores on Granville Island into one, beautiful flagship store. We've had a few locations over the years including a store in West Vancouver and a gallery in Yaletown. We continue to run with our gifted team out of Maiwa East — sending carefully packed boxes around the world. We continue to have our research library and workshop space (not open to the public during COVID) on a second floor of the Net Loft on Granville Island. And now we are running up the sails on what used to be called Maiwa Supply, it will be our new flagship. Appropriately enough, we are calling it Maiwa Granville Island.
This is a happy move for us; consolidating our two physical stores into one space, making changes, keeping our original vision strong and meaningful.
Thanks to everyone for their generous support.
