Halifax: The sweetest little shop

In 2007, owner Johanna Galipeau, then 19, was fed up with spending money on mall finds that she’d later see all over the city, but her student pocketbook didn’t allow for the luxuries of boutique shopping. With Sweet Pea, she could provide that coveted shopping experience, minus the guilt, by keeping prices to an entirely palatable $80 average. (Canadian-made or environmentally friendly lines are allow to bend that rule.)

The boutique also indulges another of Galipeau’s guilty pleasures: dresses. Save a few cardigans and billowy tops, the shop is equipped entirely with this girly garment, challenging its customers to realize dresses don’t always mean dressy. Each week, the racks are restocked with Canadian and international lines (with 80 percent based in Canada). It’s a mix of eccentric pieces with the ultimate in pretty and the comfort of casual.

As a girl with a wardrobe dedicated entirely to a frilly-over-frumpy cause, I long ago proclaimed Sweet Pea Boutique as my favourite and most dependable Halifax shop. But a recent visit, when a local mother-daughter pair announced that—despite having spotted Galipeau’s SP shopping bags around the city—this was their first venture into the boutique, I realized the shop might benefit from a little more volume. So Halifax, if you’ve yet to veer from the comforts of Spring Garden Road, take a few steps up Queen and fall in love, like me, with a sweet little shop that never disappoints.