By Elli Stuhler

Shared, 82A Bathurst St.
http://www.weshared.com/

Nestled away in the King West neighbourhood, Shared is a brand spankin’ new shop that makes it really hard to feel guilty dropping $48 on a T-shirt.

Especially when 50% of the profits are shared (pun intended) with a different local charity each month. Founder and Co-owner Carlo Colacci decided to give each retailer around the world the task of picking the charity of choice, as they would have a better insight into the issues in, say, Tokyo, which is only one of the few major cities where Shared Clothing can be found.

To add to the socially conscious aspect, each piece is 100% sweatshop free. Shared receives its ultra-soft supima cotton in rolls from the United States, and is knitted, dyed and sewn in Canada. And as if this weren’t enough, Shared clothing also uses organic cotton.

That’s right, doers of bad deeds; with the purchase of each socially and environmentally conscious T-shirt you’re simultaneously receiving good Karma points and looking cool.

Shared Clothing has been around for about five years and after seeing success in New York, LA, Tokyo and Hong Kong, this Canadian line decided to finally set up its first permanent retail space in Toronto.

So why did it take five years to open a store in the company’s motherland? “I guess no one wanted a local T-shirt,” says Colacci of Shared’s initially unsuccessful Canadian start up. However, after a pop up shop popped up on Queen West in the summer of ’08, Collaci and his partner Joyce Lo noticed that Torontonians were finally ready for their line of snuggly basics.

Et voila, there now stands a shop the size of a tradeshow booth on King and Bathurst, which opened late September.

Designed by none other than the fashionably philanthropic duo themselves, the space is filled with bizarre antiques plucked from flea markets, junkyards and parking lots. Lo said she wanted a visually engaging space to compliment the simplicity of her clothing.

Hanging from a neon rod are tees, tanks, hoodies and cardigans, ideal for fall layering. The organic supima cotton just so happens to be über-soft: they’re the kind of basics that can be effortlessly be pulled off with jeans, or put on for snuggling your weekend away.