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The perfect winter blanket, your new go-to red lip and books to push you into action. 

Leila Kwok

We’re ready to spill the tea about one of our fave Vancouver haunts. Laurence & Chico Café, run by design duo Laurence Li and Chico Wang, is a café-boutique hybrid and an extension of the Parsons-educated designers’ quirky aesthetic (including a rubber-duck-themed restroom). The menu, curated by local chefs, changes every three months, so be sure to plan a return visit.

1 Hotels

If going green involves contemporary-rustic decor, locally sourced food and a fleet of Teslas on standby for a shopping spree at Barneys, we are in. That’s what you get at 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge, where the focus is very much on minimizing en­vironmental impact without sacrificing even a smidgen of luxury. The brand uses reclaimed materials as much as possible and even has five-minute-shower timers as a polite reminder that water is a finite resource. Saving the planet has never felt so fancy.

It’s time to do that thing you’ve always wanted to do—whatever it is. Don’t know where to start? Take inspo from the Do Book Company’s guidebooks (from $19.95 each). Break free from the status quo (Do Disrupt), find balance (Do Breathe) and even learn how to make bread (Do Sourdough). Pass the butter.

Sally Jubb

Maybe your dream is to run away to Paris with your true love and live on baguettes and wine. Or maybe you’re too practical for such carb-fuelled hedonism. Enter Vancouver Opera’s production of Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème, about a pair of artists living their best boho life in the City of Light.

Sorry, Danny Zuko. Leather is showing its softer side, thanks in part to Parisian label Nour Hammour. Designers Nour Hammour and Erin Conry Webb—who made a name for themselves with their hand-embellished takes on moto jackets—have branched into leather clothing in a rainbow of hues. Our pick? A pair of high-waisted, belted blush leather shorts ($760, nour-hammour.com). Just call us “the pink ladies.”

Leaving the house in February is a struggle. Harder still if you own a snuggly made-in-Vancouver Minca blanket. Inspired by the travels of founder and New Zealand native Brooke Wells, they’re made of a softer-than-a-kitten combo of merino wool, cotton and linen. (From $125 each, thisisminca.com)

David Krovblit

Discover the next Emily Carr—and get some masterpieces for your place—at this year’s Artist Project. The annual arts fair showcases over 250 up-and-coming talents from around the world, so best make a day of it. (February 21 to 24, at Toronto’s Better Living Centre)

Estée Lauder’s new Pure Color Desire Rouge Excess Lipstick is a beauty unicorn: It’ll last from your a.m. coffee to that cinq-à-sept without making your lips drier than a Canadian winter. How? A little science: 25 percent pure pigment wrapped up in a moisturizing formula that keeps colour locked on lips under a thin layer of skin-repairing oil. ($55, at Holt Renfrew, holtrenfrew.com)

Long before designer collabs were the thing to do, Christian Dior and Roger Vivier put their high-fashion heads together to create hundreds of pairs of shoes, from embroidered kitten heels to satin slipper loafers. The next best thing to getting your hands on these beauties? The new coffee-table book Dior, by Roger Vivier ($115), which includes glossy photos of 300 pieces for you to drool over.

We’re all for the Old Hollywood romance of a gown, but nothing says “I just came from Gatsby’s house party and it was lit” like silk pyjamas. This pair is made in Italy and great for a date night out…and whatever happens afterwards. (Top, $1,097, and bottoms, $673, forrestlesssleepers.com)

Up your coffee game with the Nespresso Barista ($299, nespresso.com). The new gadget comes loaded with more than 20 recipes for hot, cold and chocolate-based coffees, helping you prepare the perfect iced coffee or create intricate latte art. All you have to do is push a button, sit back and enjoy. 

Number one on our must-do list the next time we stay at Royal Mansour Marrakech? Stopping by the ultra-luxe property’s boutique to pick up a pair of these gorgeous pointed-toe slippers ($1,195) designed exclusively for the hotel by Christian Louboutin. 

Twenty-eight-year-old Australian singer-songwriter Meghan Sullivan McInerney—a.k.a. Meg Mac—stops at Toronto's Rivoli on Feb. 20 as part of her North American tour. The songstress's dark pop, like her feminist anthem "Give Me My Name Back"—is raw and honest. She definitely has a voice you'll want to hear live. 

Éric Lajeunesse

Celebrate a trio of ultra-talented Quebec women artists at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. Opening this month, the three shows celebrate women—the multidisciplinary Franoçoise Sullivan, abstract painter Rita Letendre and artist Marie-Claire Blais—with over eight decades combined of creative experience in Quebec. There's nowhere better to take in art that's had a great impact on Quebec culture.