‘The Sophie Effect’
HOW OUR FIRST LADY IS HELPING CANADIAN FASHION
When Sophie Grégoire Trudeau joined Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and First Lady Akie Abe at a cocktail event in Kashikojima, Japan, on Thursday, her metallic gold shoes made quite an impression.
Within hours, the Canadian-designed heels had a lengthy pre-order list.
“We have a growing waitlist. I won’t give you the number, but it’s significant enough that I’m smiling,” said Elle AyoubZadeh, owner of the Toronto shoe line Zvelle.
“Sophie is Canada’s style icon.”
The shoes that are making AyoubZadeh smile are a $375 per pair, handcrafted line of leather high heels called the “Ava.” Grégoire Trudeau first wore the style during her visit to the White House in March, and sported two different colours of the heel in Japan this week. Since then, AyoubZadeh says the demand for the Ava has soared.
“Whatever she does, the world is watching, and as a result the benefits come back to Canada,” AyoubZadeh said.
Joining husband Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Japan for the G7 summit this past week, Grégoire Trudeau has been meticulously styled head-to-toe in Canadian designers. To meet with the emperor and empress at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on Tuesday, she wore a formfitting pastel pink dress designed by Jay Godfrey (Godfrey is the son of Paul Godfrey, CEO of Postmedia, which owns the National Post).
The choice to promote homegrown fashion is something that Grégoire Trudeau’s friend and stylist Jessica Mulroney said is generating buzz not only in Canada, but overseas as well.
“There’s been a lot of attention in Japan of what she’s wearing,” she said. “We don’t even understand the full effect yet of what Japan will be. Japan is such a crazy market.”
The Japanese spent this week “swooning” over the Trudeaus, according to reports in the Japan Times, and Mulroney said there has been great public interest in Grégoire Trudeau’s outfits in Tokyo, an epicentre for fashion and a vital market for up-and-coming Canadian designers.
Montreal luxury accessory designer Dexter Peart, co-founder of WANT Les Essentiels, said his brand has already felt “the Sophie effect” since Grégoire Trudeau stepped off the plane in Japan on Monday carrying one of their bags.
“Within 24 hours, there’s no question that there was a spike in attraction to that bag she was wearing,” Peart said.
“She’s the perfect representation of the customer we have in mind.”
In an industry that’s tough to break through, many Canadian fashion designers are enjoying the hard-to-get exposure Grégoire Trudeau is giving them. Dr. Ben Barry, an associate professor at Ryerson University’s School of Fashion, said that Grégoire Trudeau’s support is enormously important to a designer’s brand recognition.
“When you’re talking about a lot of emerging Canadian designers, they’re small businesses relative to their U.S. and British counterparts, and are working with small marketing budgets,” Barry said.
“So someone like Sophie Trudeau, who is wearing Canadian brands in an international context, receives press not just in Canada, but around the world.”
Lucian Matis, a Torontobased designer who was born in Romania, watched dresses sell out after Grégoire Trudeau started wearing his namesake label. Matis, who showed his first collection at Toronto Fashion Week in 2007, said since being tied to Grégoire Trudeau, he’s had less trouble getting a hold of people on the phone.
“People answer on the other end much faster now,” he said.
“She really put the brand on an international platform.”