shared a fascination with shape and line. As it turned
out, he had the crazy idea of opening a menswear
boutique—a cool one, not the same old tweedy stuff
everyone else was selling, but not tie-dye and ponchos
either—and he asked me, would I be interested in a job?
Well, yes, of course I was.
They tell me now that I seemed so arrogant back then,
but it was because I was insecure. I’d drive Peter to
work in my two-seater sports car, a 1953 MG TD, which
was a vintage car even back then, and I’d be dressed
in these super flashy clothes, like this double-breasted
suede jacket I used to love. It was the hippie era, but
I wasn’t a hippie. Well, maybe a little bit. I was a slick
hippie, a bit of a dandy. My dad never approved of what
I wore or what I did, though. Later he would come down
to our store in Gastown and tell me I had the wrong
shoes on and that I should wear a suit to work.
The Sheppard’s clothing store made no sense at all,
of course. It was upstairs from the Sheppard Shoes
store so nobody could find it unless they knew it was
there. And a lot of people never bothered to find out.
So, I guess you could say it was struggling. Then one
day Peter told me he was thinking about going out
on his own and wondered if I wanted to go with him.
Why not? I thought. I had nothing else to do.
Peter found a location for the store he wanted to
open and my dad offered to loan him some money—
$13,500—to get started as long as he made me a 50
percent partner. I had no business skills, but I looked
good and I dressed well, so Peter agreed. And so, in
1970, we signed a lease and Fox & Fluevog was born.
1970
Not long after Fox & Fluevog opens,
international supermodel Kecia Nyman
walks into the store and walks out
with John’s heart. Three months
later, they’re married, and John is
hobnobbing with the jet set.
Around Christmas of 1969, John meets
Peter Fox, manager of Sheppard Shoes,
at his parents’ church. In 1970, the two
open a shoe store in historic Gastown.
The partnership, known as Fox &
Fluevog, lasts a decade.
1971197048
49
We celebrated with dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory
(which is still there, beside our existing flagship store).
Fox & Fluevog was a revolutionary shop in Vancouver,
maybe in the world. It was located in a vintage building
in the most historic part of the city, Gastown, a neigh-
bourhood of cobblestone streets and brick low-rises
that date back to the nineteenth century. It’s named
for a saloonkeeper, “Gassy Jack” Deighton. This is
where the city began, but for a long time it was pretty
rough—in the Dirty Thirties it was all warehouses and
hobo camps; after the Second World War it was the
city’s skid row. Then in the 1960s, the city planned to
put a freeway through here. That woke everyone up, and
people began to realize how beautiful the old buildings
were, and they decided to preserve them instead.
In the 1960s and ’70s, Gastown was really interesting.
It was really fun. It was revolutionary. It was that sense
that we could change the world. Hippies, peaceniks
and draft dodgers came to Vancouver from all over
North America, and everyone hung out here. My first
employee, Robert, lived in a commune, and they all had
multiple partners. It’s just the way it was back then.
Gastown was filled with bars and pubs and boutiques,
and I remember a hip vegetarian restaurant called the
Aspidistra that used to play LGFM, the alternative radio
station. Hip was different back then; it was a little
hippier, a little grungier. There was lots of Grateful Dead.
There was lots of pot, too, and other drugs. In 1971,
a bunch of hippies held a “Grasstown Smoke-in,” which
was busted up by the cops—it became known as the
Gastown riot, and it happened right outside our store.
Anyway, Fox & Fluevog was really funky. It had these
sixteen-foot ceilings, stylin’ with all vintage and antique
furniture and old books, thousands of them, that we
bought for five cents a pop from the Opportunity
Rehabilitation
