Toronto's Queen Street West has a unique culture. It is a place full of creative people, people who are not part of the culture of the masses. It is cool, hip and trendy, supposedly.
Why supposedly?
Even though the culture of Queen Street is very different from the rest of the city, the "coolness" of it is rather tasteless. Some examples -
1. Fresh (the vegetarian restaurant): people raved about it. 2 friends of mine brought me there in 2 different times. Yet each time the food was unimpressive. The sauces were glue-like in consistency (eew!), their veggie burger pattie dry and crumbly, and their tofu tasted strange (a bit sour - as if it's bad. I'm Asian, so I know what tofu tastes like in almost all kinds of dishes. Heck, maybe the tofu was bad that day). Their cookies choked me because of the dryness. The prices were ridiculous for the quality of food served. The place was cool though, and the staff good looking.
2. Preloved: I previously wrote an entry about Preloved's line of clothing. I purchased a piece from Holt Renfrew. As I searched their website, I was overjoyed to see that they have their own store on Queen. So off I went this weekend to the store, just to be disappointed with the entire collection and their staff. The sales girls were pretty and hip, yet whatever I tried on they would compliment me, which would have been OK, but the clothes looked bad on me! The cuts didn't fit my bodytype. However, they were all very nice and were never pushy. The selection of clothes was disappointing. It's typical Queen Street style - mismatched fabrics that looked worn out. The prices are reasonable. Their best selection is at Holt Renfrew, where the buyer probably took a lot of time choosing the best pieces for the store.
3. Last weekend I was famished. I entered a restaurant that looked "creative", in that it used different, almost uncoordinated pieces of furniture for tables and chairs. The diners looked bookishly cool (NOT nerd like). Some of them were reading. Some were chatting. Some just sat and relaxed. The only table left was a make shift table with a heater as support with a piece of glass on top. Two old airchairs were placed as seats. I sat down, and after 10 seconds I decided this was not the place to eat. Too uncomfortable. I'm not cool enough to be uncomfortable. So I left and went to the nice restaurant beside them and enjoyed an eggs benedict lunch there.
In summary, Queen Street is cool without substance.
Since this is an image blog, what does the above has to do with image?
Queen Street has the image of people who are too into cultivated looks and attitudes (in this case, cool, hip and trendy) without taking into account the inner quality beneath the surface.
For an image to be successful, the outer image transformation must be integrated with the inner image. No matter how chic and wonderful the outer image is, if the inner image isn't cultivated to reflect all that beauty, the life won't change much. The outer image becomes an empty shell.
As an image consultant, I help people with their outer image transformation, with clothing and grooming, and communication skills. But the inner transformation depends solely on the person. People will at first respond to you positively when you look great. But they will also sooner or later detect who you are inside. Who says image transformation is easy? It's a lot of hard work.
Meanwhile, I will not go to Queen Street for a long time.
