Chabanel should have a name that's a better fit

Rather than associate the street with a 17th-century martyr, let's instead honour designer John Warden

Chabanel. A strange name for a street that has come to be synonymous with the fashion industry. It was named for a missionary, Saint Noël Chabanel, who was martyred in 1649. He had lived among the Huron/wendat nation in a Catholic mission called Sainte-marie-amongthe-hurons, near Georgian Bay, for many years. His killer evidently believed Chabanel was a traitor who had shared secrets with the Iroquois.

Saint Noël Chabanel is counted among the Holy Canadian Martyrs, eight Jesuit missionaries who met gruesome deaths for spreading the word of God among people who already had religious beliefs of their own.

I have nothing against him being remembered with a street name — in some other part of the city. The district now known as “quartier de la guénille,” Québécois for “shmatta district,” also needs a new name, because the street now has ambitions beyond sewing machines.

Montreal has long defined itself as a city where people care about fashion. When I was growing up, fashion meant Paris. My aunt, who was a professional seamstress, copied the latest fashions she saw in magazines imported from France, ball gowns and all.

But the mid-1960s hit Montreal like it did Paris, London and New York, and the notion of feminine elegance went out of the window while designers reinterpreted hippie fashion to great acclaim.

Their names still resonate: Pierre Cardin, Yves Saint Laurent, Paco Rabanne and his metallic dresses, André Courrèges and his miniskirts and Mary Quant, who famously said “Good taste is death; vulgarity is life.”

Meanwhile in Canada, we were producing staid but well-made coats and suits. In all shades of Canadian brown and navy.

At that time, Montreal's garment trade was moving to Chabanel, and the street, where generations of immigrants learned to become Québécois, became fashion central. It still is. Not everyone has decamped to China or Bangladesh.

The industrial buildings from the '60s have been renovated. Renaissance is in the air. Fashion companies live side by side with tech startups, up-and-coming art galleries, artists' studios, a microbrewery and cafés.

Revitalizing Chabanel, a project started in 2008 under Mayor Gérald Tremblay, must be made a priority, in order to ensure that the street's transition is a success. Changing the street's name may not seem so important, but it is. Marketing experts call it branding. You are what you are called. Who wants to be a martyr?

One name comes to my mind, forgotten by many but not all: designer John Warden, the coolest man in Montreal during the '60s.

Warden was born in Niagara Falls in 1939, studied at the Parsons School of Design in New York City, moved to Montreal to make his name in fashion and ended up conquering the world. His career lasted 40 years. Chabanel was where it all began for him, working for legendary apparel maker Auckie Sanft.

In 1966, he opened a ladies' boutique on Crescent St. and one for men on Bishop St. in 1968.

He dressed Quebec vedettes like Dominique Michel and Louise Marleau as well as international stars like Margaret Trudeau and Ivana Trump, who modelled for him.

A very handsome and elegant man himself, Warden carried the “mods” look with panache.

He designed uniforms for Expo 67 and was part of the small group of designers who created the uniforms for the 1976 Olympics.

In 1978, he won the award Designer of the World, shared with Yves Saint Laurent.

He died in Montreal in 2007.

John Warden was a visionary, an entrepreneur and a creative spirit. In France, Saint Laurent will never be forgotten. In Canada, John Warden has already slipped from our collective consciousness. Time to bring him back and turn rue Chabanel into boulevard John-warden. And maybe use his signature flower, the daisy, as its symbol of renewal.