About Us

Smoking Lily is located in beautiful Victoria, BC, a government town on the verge of being a city.  Located on the western edge of Canada, Victoria is a pretty awesome place to live, create and work.  We are surrounded by ocean, rocks, giant fir trees, creative people and politicians, all of which influence and inspire our designs.  Our creations are sewn and silk-screened in-house by a handful of talented women who believe in making quality goods that they love to wear, and hope that you will too.  We believe we can do this in our home town, as opposed to contracting out overseas, and still make it affordable for our customers.

Smoking Lily tries to buy most of its supplies locally, then within BC, then Canada.  But we’re not hard asses about it, after all its a big world we live in, with lots of beautiful goods.

Smoking Lily has three retail locations.  The first shop opened in 1996 on Johnson St. in Victoria.  It is a pretty amazing shop.  The store space was created in the front section of a lobby, in a 120 year old heritage building, when the owners decide to put in an elevator.  This left a a beautiful arched window with a 4 by 11 ft space behind, which is now our flagship shop.  Our second location is in Vancouver on Main St.  We opened this much bigger (now 450 sq.ft.) shop in 2002 to the delight of our mainland fans.  Then, in September 2010 we opened our second Victoria location, and our largest shop to date (1200 sq. ft.).  The Milkman’s Daughter (an ode to owner’s father, who was indeed a milkman) is located in a lovely heritage building that also houses a Buddhist Temple.

Over the years we have heard many great stories from our customers.  One of our favourites, was from a gal who went off to a new city to go to university.  Feeling kind of blue one day because she didn’t know anyone, a stranger approached her, recognizing the Smoking Lily Bike Bag she was wearing.  The two quickly got caught up in a conversation and became good friends.

At Smoking Lily we feel lucky to live where we live and privileged to do what we do.  We like to push boundaries and reflect on the old.  Most of all though, SMOKING LILY LOVES YOU!