Canadian homeware innovator Fable brought its ethos of sustainability and design-driven living to Southern California this season with The Holiday Pantry, an immersive pop-up at Platform LA in Culver City. The two-day event, open to the public from 10 AM to 5 PM, gathered locals around thoughtfully curated home essentials and interactive holiday experiences designed for festive hosting, meaningful gifting, and joyful connection.
Upon entering the pop-up, visitors were transported into a beautifully merchandised “pantry” filled with Fable’s signature tableware, glassware, and homewares—all set alongside a suite of essentials and giftable finds from retail partners including Recess, Coyuchi, Koala Eco, Catskills Candle Studio, Sauz, Nama, and Sockerbit. Shoppers enjoyed discovering collections in a high-visibility setting, with opportunities to see, touch, and learn about the quality craftsmanship behind every piece.
“The Holiday Pantry is about bringing community together around the table, both literally and figuratively,” explained co-founder Tina Luu in the brand’s announcement. “We wanted to create a space that embodies everything we love about the season: good design, meaningful connection, and moments that feel special, whether you’re hosting, gifting, or simply gathering.”
Fable’s Holiday Pantry pop-up at Platform LA distills what the brand does best in retail: turning short-term spaces into high-touch, community-driven experiences that bring its Canadian concept-store playbook to new markets. The conversation below focuses on how Fable approaches stores, pop-ups, and the operational backbone needed to scale them. In this exclusive, Co-founder and CTO Tina Luu speaks with interviewer Deniz Gumuslugil about why physical spaces matter more than ever for a digitally born brand, and how Fable thinks about retail as both a sales channel and a gathering place.
Reimagining Retail As Gathering
Deniz: When you think about the future of Fable, what part of the in-person customer experience are you most excited to innovate?
Tina: For us, we grew up online. And so far, it’s like: how do we deliver the online experience so people feel like they’re there and understand what the product is? But we know that the products need to be touched and felt. So as we’re trying to expand into retail, we’re trying to reimagine what retail could be, like a retail experience could be. So, in our Vancouver retail space, our HQ headquarters, we’ve actually put in a cafe. And so we put in a cafe with our retail space, and we actually have monthly wine events. We invite local chefs to come in with local sommeliers, and we host an event to build community around the Fable brand. And so it’s like, how can we create more community and experience and bring our customers together?
Deniz: And how does a pop-up like The Holiday Pantry fit into that retail vision?
Tina: Exactly, it’s like a natural extension. The three of us, the three co-founders, we love to host. We love to meet people, share food and stories, and do it with Fable as a vehicle. To break bread. So this is just an actual extension of the retail experience.
Retail That Drives Results
Deniz: How did creating that retail space translate into sales? Do you see more sales coming from that?
Tina: We did. We did see a lift, especially in Vancouver and Toronto. It’s because, as you said today, it’s about feeling it, touching it, seeing the colors. Makes a difference.
Deniz: Looking ahead, do you see permanent U.S. stores—like a potential LA or New York space—becoming part of Fable’s retail strategy?
Tina: I hope so. I hope so. I want to be here. I see familiar brands like Sunday’s. There’s also a Vancouver brand just across from us, and so we would love to have it printed here or even in New York City, so it’d be nice to connect with our U.S. audience.
Building the Right Partner Ecosystem
Deniz: As you grow your retail footprint and pop-ups, what do you look for in a production partner or supplier beyond the sustainability label?
Tina: So when we look for partners, the same really is a big part. But it’s also how they treat their workers. Like, workers’ rights are very important to us. Equal rights for men and women are also very important to us. We also love visiting the facility to ensure they are the right partner. And we love to have a close relationship with the workers. So I know that with our Portuguese manufacturers for the ceramics, we have a very close relationship with them over the years. And so that’s what we look for. And then also how we work with the team on designing and sourcing it.
We try to be as zero-waste as possible, so no packaging, everything is renewable, and everything is cardboard. We donate all returned items to local charities. So we work with a lot of numbers, several local charities back in Vancouver to help people move who are in need, or they are refugees who are coming into Canada.
Deniz: From a sustainability standpoint, are there any practices from your ceramics partners that feel especially meaningful to you?
Tina: Right, yeah, yeah. For our ceramics producer, they are fully zero-waste because they reuse the clay. And the water that they use to process the clay, to make the clay, they then move it towards the farmers because the water is now filled with a lot of silt and minerals. Instead of just putting it back into the municipal sewers, they actually ship it to the farmers to water their crops.
Operations Behind Experiential Retail
Deniz: What has been the most unexpected operational challenge as Fable has scaled into more products, countries, and now more retail experiences?
Tina: Supply chain. Inventory. As we’ve grown our product line to source from multiple countries, we don’t just stick to one country. We try to find the best producers all around the world. And so as we’ve grown our collection, the countries are now a list of countries, and it’s hard to work with certain people in certain countries and then import them in and then manage the supply chain of end demand of products in a timeline, and so it’s like I would say that’s pretty complex.
Deniz: And personally, what’s been the biggest lesson for you as a leader building these kinds of events and retail moments?
Tina: What’s challenged me the most? Yeah. It’s being flexible and being able to pivot. This event, for example, it was supposed to be, we were supposed to have the last night’s events outside in the garden, and today we can pop up throughout the market, but we had to pivot really quickly. Literally the day of, and so we’re like scrambling, trying to figure things out, having one over here. But that’s the fun part of building a business. It’s being able to pivot and think creatively about, like, what the next alternative is, what’s plan B?
Continuing the Momentum
For updates and more details, visit Fable Holiday Pantry.
