was a blend of creative spirit and business realities.
FALL SHOWS blow hot and cold, commercial to creative. The big buzz of the week: a competition by Target, won by Mélissa Nepton
Montreal Fashion Week fluctuated maddeningly last week, blowing hot and cold in actual temperature but also in quality, with clothes ranging from commercial to ultra avant-garde, derivative to designed, and with a creative spirit willing but not always able to conquer business realities.
So the week was a bit like Montreal itself, in its potholed glory, with its crumbling infrastructure and infernally fluctuating climate, but with a world-class reputation for design, music, film and the circus, of course.
The four-day event, showcasing styles for next fall and winter from about 20 designers was held for the second season in a symbol of the new, creative Montreal, the grand Arsenal contemporary art centre in Griffintown — where guests shivered in some rooms, sweated in others. (It must be hard to regulate the temperature in 20,000-plus square feet.)
Many Montreal designers and manufacturers have been flailing on the fashion front in recent years. For example, exports from Quebec dropped by $1 billion from 2004 to 2008. It’s a symptom of the global reality in which mass retailers create good, cheap fashion abroad, while young designers here struggle for funding and market share.
Case in point: Perhaps the biggest buzz and best showcase of Montreal talent last week was a competition staged by Target, the mega-U.S. retailer set to enter the Canadian market in the spring and Quebec in the fall.
Mélissa Nepton, known for her easy, cosy, casual wear, took the prize of $25,000, an Elle feature and a collaboration collection coming to Quebec Target stores early in 2014.
The experience and the publicity from the competition were equal bonuses to winning, Nepton said Wednesday, more than a week past her due date for baby Olivia.
For the Target collaboration, she will travel to New York to work with a design team there, she said. The cash award was not the most important factor, she added, noting her company is doing well, but the money will help with fashion shoots and lookbooks.
Fashion week was disappointing for its lack of many labels, Nepton agreed, suggesting that the issue in Montreal is the lack of big companies like Joe Fresh and Pink Tartan, which show in Toronto. Funds and timing — the early date was a problem for Denis Gagnon and UNTTLD — are other issues.
The buzz is good for her co-competitors, too, Nepton added. They also shone.
UNTTLD’s Simon Bélanger and José Manuel St-Jacques, great new hopes on the Montreal scene with a major prize in the TVA La Collection runway reality show in 2010 followed by a series of outstanding collections, went for the blues, with two polished selvage denim outfits and a sparkly dress.
Nargisse Ennasri Akyuz, of Nisse, riffed on the tuxedo.
By Thomas, by Natasha Thomas, featured an urban cool coat vest over screen print top and loose pants.
Anastasia Lomonova created a cream cashmere coat that was a hit with journalists. Lomonova, with superb draping and pleating skills, thought she had a backer sewn up last season but the deal fell through.
Not in the competition were Danielle Martin and Pao Lim, the husband and wife team behind the Martin Lim collection, a highlight of the week with its fringe theme. The pair are also hoping for backing, after a successful one-time collaboration with Reitmans.
Officially an industry event, organizers have opened up the doors to fashion fans, selling tickets to shows.
Sensation Mode, producer of the event, reports attendance of 20,000 — including buyers of multiple tickets as more than one entry. As for registrations and accreditations of media and buyers, there were about 300 media, 30 from out of town, and — here’s an issue — just about 30 buyers, without any of the major department stores on the list, although they may have come without registering.
One buyer was Tammy Rae Beltrami, of Aria Boutique in Regina, which carries about 80 per cent Canadian design, mostly from Quebec. Among her buys of the week: Nadya Toto, Harricana, Denis Gagnon, Marie Saint Pierre, Christian Chenail of Muse, Mackage, Pajar, Iris and Mélissa Nepton. “It’s pretty big for a little city,’’ Beltrami said of her buy. Of note, most of those lines did not show at fashion week, notably stars like Denis Gagnon and Marie Saint Pierre.
Beltrami, among other out-oftown buyers and media brought in by the Quebec government, said she appreciated that she was so well treated, with a front-row seat at shows to view the fabrics and movement, helping her make her fashion purchases.
Among other high points of the week:
Fur fest: Mariouche Gagné, of Harricana, the fur-recycling pioneer, showed a hybrid show including her collaboration with Rossignol, the French ski and lifestyle brand, with fur-edged futuristic ski wear and those funky recycled jackets, vests and coats for which she is known, always punctuated with trapper hats, gaiters and mittens. In the Arctic chill of last week, everyone was wishing for a piece of the collection or more, and they were available at a pop-up shop on-site, where oysters and ice wine were served.
Three for one: Claudette Floyd, of Rush Couture, a stalwart on Montreal’s Main for 15 years, creating a steady stream of special occasion dresses for proms, has renewed her line, dropping the couture from her label and adding more day wear to her gala-cocktail-prom standards.
Still, Floyd presented what was more like three collections than one. Standout pieces: a statement coat in a red and beige chunky fabric, similar strong statements in jackets or coats of that black-gold fabric, all detailed with ornate embroidery and loops of beige fringe, and black and white evening ensembles with white skirts and black overlays, asymmetric or belted. The white shoes were a bit of a downer,
though, especially for one model who lost one on the runway.
(Designers, stylists, agents: make sure your models can walk. This has been a rather bad season for the art and craft of catwalking at the Arsenal.)
Ode to the Amish: Newcomer Cécile Raizonville, of Matière Noire, staged a hyper-cool installation inspired, she said, by Amish attire. The young designer, who trained in Barcelona and at Josep Font and Maxime Simoëns in Paris, writes that her aim is to create a modest, beautiful way of dressing and finally to offer sustainable pieces. Among the offerings: a white short suit, with pleated skirt front on the shorts (surely not Montreal winter wear, but cute) and a neat screen printed top — the pattern taken from a crashed computer screen.
Passion play: You can see the passion in Hinda A.’s Symbiose line. The designer worked colourful, organically shaped blocks — mauve, cranberry, azure, blush — into jersey dresses, worn with bright tights. One lovely dress was of silk velvet skirt in a purplish aubergine, with a sheer top with open back and embellishments.
So where will these designers go, how will they make it or break? The Statistics Canada numbers on the Quebec garment industry are not encouraging. Employment in the manufacturing sector in Quebec was 40,000 in 2004, dropping to 30,000 in 2008 and to 28,400 in 2011, although those latest figures include those working at head offices in retail and wholesaling.
Export figures are precipitous: in 2004, Quebec exported $1.6 billion worth of goods, more than 90 per cent to the U.S., dropping to $600 million in 2008 and $500 million in 2011.
Elliot Lifson, vice-chairman of Peerless Clothing and president of the Canadian Apparel Federation, suggests the numbers don’t give the entire story. For instance, he notes, the figures don’t include big players that drop-ship from India or China, meaning the company’s product does not figure in Canadian export statistics, or the fact that the job losses are on the factory floor, not in creative, merchandising or sales categories.
Lifson says the big players like his own Peerless powerhouse for menswear are succeeding, while the designers with an atelier and storefront may be making a living. It’s the middle ground that can’t compete on price or service, Lifson says.
“The thing that makes your difference is creativity — and they don’t do it,’’ he said.
“One thing I can say, ‘We do have the talent.’ There’s an esprit here.”
And he cautions that we are not competing against each other, but in the big global playhouse of fashion. “Unless we get together, we don’t stand a chance.”