IN LOVE WITH ANOTHER TIME
Condo owner mad over things Mod
Patrick Foisy is mad about all things Mod, but he’s not an aging baby boomer who remembers that era. Rather, he’s a 45-yearold school teacher who just happens to love everything about the fashion and the music (but not the violence) that is associated with the Mod lifestyle.
In 1960 and ’70s Britain, the Mods and Rockers were rival youth groups who dressed very differently, held different beliefs about society and frequently got into fights, often fuelled by alcohol. Rockers worshipped motorbikes, dressed in leathers and listened to 1950s rock ’n’ roll, while Mods rode scooters, wore smart suits and loved pop groups, like the Beatles, the Who and the Yardbirds.
Foisy was still a baby when all that was going on but he is certainly making up for not being born at the “right” time in the way he has decorated his home — a loft-style condo in StHenri, which he shares with his wife Nathalie Malartre, a financial planner who works for an insurance company. (Foisy also performs gigs as a disc jockey, spinning 45-r.p.m. hits and writes a blog — parkaavenue.blogspot.com — that bears the slogan “Living as a Mod in the 21st century.”)
The couple’s home is a onebedroom, two-storey apartment, situated in a former sewing machine factory. It has an open dining/kitchen and living room. Several of the walls are exposed brick and the predominant colour scheme is 1970s yellow and orange. The furniture is elegant mid-century but with quirky accessories that Foisy has repurposed. The drawer of a manually operated cash register, for instance, pops open to reveal knives and forks! An old-fashioned Canada Post mailbox holds dirty laundry.
Q Have you been collecting these things over many years?
A I started collecting as soon as I moved out of my parents’ place. I was living in a student dorm, so I stored some of my stuff in their garage. One of the first things I bought was that red and white Coca-Cola sign.
(He points to a big round ‘Buvez Coca-Cola’ sign, hanging on the wall to the right of the kitchen.)
Q You said you sourced some of your vintage things online, but surely that wasn’t very common back when you were a student?
A EBay was already around. I’ve been buying things on that site since 1999, but I also got some things from my grandparents, like the dining room table. My grandfather collected antiques, so he was an inspiration to me. On weekends I used to go with him to auctions in the Eastern Townships.
(As we walk around the dining/ living area, Foisy stops from time to time, to show the things he has acquired either online, in vintage stores or through family and friends — a coin-operated public phone with a rotary dial; a dentist’s table and swivelling light; a metal safe bearing the name Federal Bank of New York, which doubles as a side table; a London Underground sign and a 1960s transistor radio.)
Q Where did you get the old radio?
A I found it online. It’s the one the character Don Draper had in his kitchen in the Mad Men television series. After the show ended, the production company sold off everything — the cars, clothes, cufflinks, everything. The cufflinks went for around $1,000, but I couldn’t afford those!
(The lower floor is a recreation room with exposed fieldstone walls — the foundations of the original factory. The walls are adorned with pop art and on the coffee table is a pile of 45-r.p.m. EPs. On the way back up the stairs to the main floor, I notice a turquoise and silver scooter tucked into a corner.)
Q A Vespa?
A No. It’s a Lambretta, but I do have a Vespa, as well as another Lambretta.
Q You do take being a Mod very seriously!
A (Laughs.)
(Foisy leads me over to the pièce de résistance — a floor television with giant knobs and a fabric-covered speaker, which has been converted into a fish tank! A couple of fish swim past a tiny Carnaby Street sign and an equally tiny red British-style phone booth. Two figurines stand on the bottom of the tank. A pair of rabbit ears sits atop the TV cabinet.)
You see these two figurines? One is Pete Marriott from the Small Faces and the other is Pete Townshend of The Who. I just got the antenna. It was another of the props used in Mad Men.