From Pop-ups to a storefront, the activist behind Dot and Bea gets creative to keep her shop open 

The clothing all once had another home, yet now it has been carefully taken in. Amidst the racks of clothing, Palmer, a red-haired woman with an enthusiastic energy, is steam-cleaning the newest collection of garments before putting them out on the floor.

According to Collective Fashion Justice, approximately fifteen million garments are sent to the market weekly and about forty per cent gets dumped in the landfill. 

That sad reality stuck with her. 

But Palmer is also a lifelong thrifter. In her teens, she would impress her friends by dressing head-to-toe in thrifted outfits costing $50 max. 

She  combined her love of searching for good thrift finds with her concerns for the environment to create a dream business that might actually stand a chance. 

Dot and Bea came alive right before the pandemic hit in 2020, when she launched on Instagram. Even though she lacked the marketing skills, she shared pieces of clothing on her account, hoping that she would gain some traction. At the same time, she was teaching, acting and tending to her duties as a mother of two boys. 

Once the pandemic quieted down, the Dot and Bea pop-up began. Palmer started doing outdoor pop-up markets. She used this time to build connections with customers and vendors who shared the mission of combating textile waste. The all-around attempt was to get her name out there. She began to connect with others in the eco-fashion community.

She quickly met Kelly Drennan, founder of Fashion Takes Action, a sustainable fashion non-profit organization. The first time Drennan met Palmer was moments before an event she was organizing at the Evergreen Brickworks, a Toronto community environmental site. Palmer was setting up her stand surrounded by other sustainable fashion vendors. The sales were never the main concern for the event. “Sales probably weren't high for the vendors, but it didn't matter to her; she was just so excited to be a part of the community and to have conversations,” Drennan explains. 

It was no surprise she fit right in. Palmer speaks about the dangers of textile waste pretty much every day in her shop. It’s the heart and soul of what she does.  “The best use of my skill set and my goals to save the planet was to convince people not to buy new clothes,” says Palmer.

Anita Yung is a sound engineer who has clung to Palmer and her styling skills since they first met. Fashion isn’t Yung’s "thing," so when she learned she had been invited to walk the carpet at the Cannes Film Festival, Palmer was the only person she thought to help her."

The two spent an evening at Palmer’s place digging through garments to try to find the perfect outfit for Yung’s big night. “It was everything that you would think, going to a stylist's place,” said Yung. After several hours, outfits and cans of Bubly, Palmer was frolicking through the racks like a fairy, when Yung spotted a plainish gold dress out of the corner of her eye. When she asked Palmer if she could try it on, she replied, “I had a feeling, I just got it back today from the cleaners.” Palmer knew in the back of her mind that this dress was made for Yung. 

And to this day, it’s Yung’s favourite gown.

Tilton Dry Cleaners is a frequently visited spot for Palmer. Tilton is a small and homey-looking shop, right off the Danforth across the street from Greenwood subway station. In the window hangs one poster, it’s Palmer’s. “Dot and Bea,” the poster reads, with pictures of vintage clothing and her message of recycling.  Every piece in Palmer’s shop is perfectly dry-cleaned or laundered, a detail she doesn’t leave out to make sure people don’t feel grossed out by the possibility of wearing a “dead” person's clothes. 

Since her business launched,  Palmer has built strong ties with Grace Chen, the owner of  Tilton Cleaners. Their connection began when Chen’s daughter and Palmer’s son were classmates in elementary school. “One side [she’s] like a customer, but the other is like best friends,” says Chen. Neither of them see this as a business transaction; to them it’s more of a partnership. It goes beyond just dry cleaning. “We do all kinds of really nifty things together, changing buttons, changing zippers so that we can save the old beautiful pieces,” says Palmer. When she was starting Dot and Bea, Chen’s business was almost at risk of closing. Dry cleaning Palmer’s clothing gave Tilton the boost it needed to keep its doors open. Soon enough, Chen agreed to let Palmer set up a tent with a few racks of clothing outside her shop. The pop-up location drew foot traffic from the nearby subway station and, despite a few thefts, helped put the name Dot and Bea out there. It was after that that she met a man who rented out rooms in a Toronto church.

The church was Palmer's stomping grounds on and off for months. Her first in-person location for her vintage shop “Dot and Bea.” The shared space within East End United Church, smack dab in the middle of one of the busiest neighbourhoods in Toronto’s east end, the Danforth. The spot was an ideal location for Palmer even though the space itself was less than perfect. At the same time, one thing really made sense: a multi-purpose space that perpetuated her belief that everything can be repurposed. She knew she couldn’t stay here for long. Her time at the church lasted about two years. In her search to find a new location, she looked to several Toronto neighbourhoods, but found many were too expensive.

Despite Palmer being proud at this moment, she admits there’s some real stress surrounding the financial aspects of running this business. “It's my first standalone storefront, but we're struggling like I really don't want to raise my prices,” said Palmer.  But the expenses have added up for her, she has to pay rent and utilities while also balancing the cost of dry cleaning and staff to work in the shop. 

Like the ceiling tiles, being in the Beaches is far from where she wants to be. “Danforth is more suited to buying thrift than say,  the Beaches, where everybody's like prancing around in Lulu,” said Drennan.

Either way, the push now has to go beyond considering this a passion project. With a family to support, she is truly all in. “My dogged determination and commitment to what I think is right and to what I think is important. I think that drives me in this business that I've created,” she says. 

Dot and Bea is a creation that would leave many disappointed if a closure was on the horizon. Despite the struggle, Palmer says, “I'm not really going to give up until someone else tells me I'm done.”