What's New at the Most Important Store In Menswear? Everything
Back in 2011, Saager Dilawri opened Neighbour in a tucked-away courtyard in downtown Vancouver. On the first day, he found himself sitting at an old roll-top desk in the middle of what he describes as a “glass-walled fishbowl of a store” asking himself, “’what am I doing here?” Fast forward to today, and Neighbour sits among the top echelon of global menswear boutiques. Its roster of brands is both supremely tasteful and consistently ahead of the curve, spanning classics like Margaret Howell and Lemaire to emerging names such as Comoli and Unkruid.
Over the past fifteen years, Neighbour has come to epitomize and even define the menswear concept store through its vision-driven, anti-trend curation, combining a consistent sense of personal taste with fearlessly adventurous picks. In the process, it has played a trailblazing role in turning good clothes into an exciting world all its own.
In late March, Neighbour opened the doors to a new 3,000-square-foot space on Vancouver’s high street. It’s set in a two-story Edwardian masonry building dating back to 1906 that’s right next to Neighbour/Women, run by Dilawri’s wife, Karyne Schultz. “The space is beautiful and being here feels like a pipe dream that became a reality much sooner than I could have imagined,” he says.
Raised in Ottawa, Dilawri started Neighbour upon his return from New York City, where he studied fashion merchandising at Parsons School of Design before joining Unis, Eunice Lee’s undersung hero of early 2010s menswear known for clean cuts and quality fabrics that quietly shuttered in 2022. “My parents have that immigrant mentality,” Dilawri says. “They’ve always pushed me to do more. When I was working in New York, they were like, ‘You can’t just stay in one place — you have to grow.’”
And so he did. After visiting a couple of fashion trade shows across the U.S., Dilawri realized many of the brands he was into at the time weren’t available in Vancouver, or even in Canada. “I figured: I’m 26 right now. I can sign a five-year lease, and then at the end of that time, if it doesn’t work out, I’m not too old to move on and try something else,” he recalls. That first period was tough. Dilawri was on his own, with his sister helping out once a week, still figuring out what it meant to run a store beyond selling clothes. “Even in 2014 or 2015, I thought I’d stop at year five. But then, for some reason,” Dilawri continues, “we started picking up traction, both in Vancouver and internationally.”
It had much to do with a change in Dilawri’s approach to buying, shifting from stocking what the market said would work to what worked for him personally. “Neighbour’s focus has always been on minimal-looking, fabric-first brands. We’ve stocked Lemaire ever since 2013. But it was only around that time we really started to find our own voice,” he says. Paradoxically, the thing that made Neighbour the most vital store in menswear was thinking less like a store.
“Some buyers are able to put what they’re into to the side and prioritize what’s popular among their customers,” Dilawri explains. “It didn’t feel right for me anymore. I decided that if I’m going to carry a brand, I need to be able to get behind it fully.” Dilawri may not have been the first to think this way. Yet, his singular dedication to it captures what sets today’s best taste-making stores apart, from established names like Maidens in Japan to newcomers such as Oakland’s Understory and San Francisco’s Rising Star Laundry. For him, this process can be boiled down to a few closely related things. “Beyond my own taste, it’s about the personal relationship with the designer, their mentality and long-term vision, the possibility of growing with them, and the product being so good it can really age.”
Dilawri gives the example of MAN-TLE, the Australian label founded in 2016 by Larz Harry and Aida Kim, who met while working for COMME des GARÇONS. “We’ve become close friends over the years,” Dilawri says. “They’re extremely particular and passionate about what they do, which is contagious. At the same time, they always wear their own clothes and aren’t precious about them at all. Just seeing that makes me connect with their brand even more than I would by just seeing it on a rack in a Paris showroom.”
Though he calls it random, Dilawri’s way of working is emblematic of a broader shift in menswear in recent years — one he has helped make tangible. Consider the buzz new drops at Neighbour creates in menswear Discord groups. Or the excitement emerging designers feel when they know Dilawri might visit their Paris showroom. Or the growing number of small, slow-working labels that find a natural home at Neighbour and other like-minded stores that popped up in its wake. “What we’re doing is incredibly niche,” Dilawri says, “yet I do feel more and more people want to understand a designer’s choices — whether it’s the fabric, construction or finishing — and get behind their clothes without overtly showing them off.” That’s about as close as you can get to defining where menswear is right now: it’s not about buying clothes for how they look, but about getting to know and genuinely caring about what they are.
Despite the store’s growing success, it wasn’t until early 2020 that Dilawri felt Neighbour was truly in full swing. Then COVID hit. With the world in lockdown, and labels and stores struggling, Neighbour flourished. Its website proved a lifesaver — not just because it looked good, but because it translated the store’s vision for its physical space into an online presence where you could almost feel the fit and fabric of the garments through the screen. “From the start, I knew e-commerce was necessary for running an independent store in a smaller market. And having always been into photography, I wanted it to be editorial — focused on conveying a mood rather than just selling a product,” he says.
New York-born, Tokyo-based photographer Ian Lanterman played a key role in shaping Neighbour’s visual identity through editorials and product imagery, highlighting texture, drape and detail in soft, natural light. “I found Ian randomly on Tumblr when we had just opened, and we’ve been very lucky to work with him ever since,” Dilawri says, noting that he’s brought on new talent since Lanterman moved to Tokyo last year.
The importance of long-term personal relationships extends to Neighbour’s latest venture. Its new Vancouver space was redesigned by Olivia Bull and Daniel Garrod, who together run ODDO. Garrod has worked with Dilawri for over a decade on several projects, including his high-end workwear label James Coward, which is stocked at Neighbour. “It’s easy for us to collaborate,” Garrod says, “because I feel there’s a lot of mutual trust and a natural flow of ideas.”
Though typically taciturn, Dilawri immediately voiced his dislike for the space at 81 West Cordova Street prior to the redesign. “I said, ‘No way!’ It was a dated labyrinth, and I couldn’t envision it being a store at all.” Now that the renovations are behind him, and having spent some time in the space, Dilawri feels very pleased. The floor plan, with many discrete and interconnected rooms stacked vertically, is still a bit unusual. Yet, with the layers peeled back, partition walls removed and natural materials added, it’s now a space where, in Dilawri’s words, “the clothes can breathe.”
“March in Vancouver is usually super rainy,” he adds, “but since the first day here it’s been really sunny.”
