Loop Clothing

The Blue Bird Selvedge is a lightweight 9.5oz Japanese Selvedge denim. Designed for those who want to enjoy a classic raw denim look in a lightweight form. Despite being lightweight the denim maintains a level of rigidness, so some break in time is necessary and the deep shade of indigo ensures maximum fading potential. Cut, sewn, built in Canada with contrast stitching, classic redline selvedge ID, a brown tanned leather patch, and silver metallic buttons and rivets.

Now available online at Bricksandbonds.ca or book your in-store experience at loopclothing.ca.

Mr. Anatole Rybas.
Aka "the $2 guy"

Being Uptown Waterloo for 17 years, you get to know a lot of our community members who experience homelessness. Some are rude, some are harmless and some stick to your heart like cholesterol from a McDonald's burger. Anatole was the latter.

Anatole and I hit it off right from the start. Our conversations would start with a politically incorrect joke or antidote that you couldn't help but laugh at.

I remember the day I proposed the idea that we co-brand on a street campaign. We would pay him and provide clothing/ food for the opportunity to advertise the shop on his cart.

We placed signs on his cart, that he walked up and down King street with and we put his $2 signs in our windows. As you can imagine, he was totally down to do it. That day people from all over popped in asking about him, the shop and what all the buzz was. We even got an article in the paper for our collaboration.

Anyway, as the months went on, Anitole would disappear during the winter months only to reappear in the summer. I would run into him in the uptown square, he would share another offside joke, ask me about my family or my girlfriend and then I would end the conversation with an "I love you buddy" and he would reply back the same.

It had been sometime that I had seen him, and just this past weekend, coincidentally I was thinking about him. Turns out that on Monday night my friend Anatole passed away. According to a familt source he froze to death on the streets of downtown Windsor.

I don't know what the answer is here, nor do I even know what the questions are. I do however know that he will be sadly missed.

I hope he's telling God those offside jokes, she may just get a kick out of them.

Rest In Peace old friend.

❤