Urbanity Shop Corp

Julia Manitius always had a dream of owning a gallery or a store selling beautiful, well made things. While living in Denmark for nearly 30 years, she’d fallen in love with the Norwegian clothing line, Oleana, so she decided she wanted to work with knitwear — contemporary knitwear though, not old-fashioned knitwear.

When she decided to return to Canada, although originally from Montreal, she found that it was Vancouver that called to her and seemed like the perfect place to introduce the Oleana line. Opening Urbanity, first in Gastown and then on tony South Granville Street, gave her that opportunity. “I came to Vancouver when I was 60, started my dream when I was 60; but I come from a long living family, so that’s okay,” she says. You could say that living her dream is keeping her young.