Vancouver Fashion Week: Eco-Designer Line-up

November 17th, 2008 | Published in Event Report

Words by Maria
Photos by Benjamin Luk

Fashions hit the runway last week during the Spring/Summer ‘09 run of Vancouver Fashion Week. The likes of Leanne McElroy for Elroy Apparel, Tom Cruise-look-a-like Christopher Bates (meant as a compliment, of course), and Cheri Milaney mingled it out with out-of-town players such as Karen Wu of Seattle, Ecko of New York, and Parasuco of Montréal. This goes in conjunction with Vancouver Fashion Week’s mandate of putting international, national, and local fashions on one stage, which lends itself for a great way to make comparisons between “us” and “them” and maybe even find a little inspiration.

Vancouver furniture designer Nathan Wiens lent out his woodworking studio and made way for the fashion masses, even throwing in a few of his own designs of the wooden variety. Wiens spliced an old tree in half and turned it into the main stage for VFW. Said tree once resided in the heart of the city but was uprooted to make way for urban development decades ago. It had been stored in his studio for a long time, so there were no fuel emissions to transport it to the venue—plus, there was no heating provided in the studio hence making this fashion week quite eco-friendly.

Holding on to that same eco-themed thread, the shows featured below are some of the ones whose appearance was reserved for the special eco-designers presentation on the second day of shows.

Adhesif Adhesif
Reminiscing back two years ago, Melissa Ferreira has come a long way. Her designs are colourful and fun, and although it can be hard to mix and match different recycled fabrics (with new as well) without having the resulting garment look too cooky, Ferreira has managed to very nearly master this art throughout her career. Her Spring/Summer ’09 collection is proof. Favourites include the satin dresses that combined solid coloured jersey fabrics with vintage prints; their construction and design elements gave them that much more depth and oomph. Ferreira’s flowy blouses also stood out—their colours standing out to call attention, but not too much too draw it in the wrong way. Their design and cut makes them perfect for dressing them up or down, and surely the funky working woman would very much appreciate them. The short jumpsuits were also to be admired—the cut and fit original and cute, with a hint of coy sexiness. Ferreira’s signature cropped sweater vests were more refined: they looked super-cute with the addition of the felted jewellery.

Barbara Gregusova
The two collections Barbara Gregusova presented this VFW were imaginative to say the least; her materials consisting of flora, aluminum foil, and recycled electronic waste. Her first collection, Secret Flowers, encompassed jewellery made of flora. Many designers incorporate natural elements such as leaves dipped in gold or feathers with beads, but Gregusova went all the way and the entirety of her jewellery line was made of elements such as nuts, flowers, and leaves, strung together with wire and glammed up with a subtle addition of Swarovski crystals. The shapes and colour combinations that resulted had a certain fantastical quality, but one could easily wear any of the Secret Flowers pieces with a simple solid-coloured dress or outfit and look ravishing, much like the models at the show. Her second collection, Hauteware, used things like discarded hard drives and laser toners to create the jewellery aspect of her line and aluminum foil to create the dresses that Gregusova considers to be the accessories of the collection, not the other way around. She also added Swarovski crystals to her designs with the end results having a very other-worldly quality. Her collections are a stunning way to use materials that would otherwise have be wasted and make them into pieces of art. Enviro-couture at its best.

Lav & Kush

Angela Saxena put together a very fresh and feminine collection for the Lav & Kush Spring/Summer ’09 season. The Lav & Kush line is super-environmental and socially conscious, even frequently giving a percentage of their sales to charities and becoming involved with their fundraisers. Bamboo and soy are often present in Saxena’s designs, and she used a lot of jersey knits in these fabrics for her newest collection. Ruffles, gathers, and flowy pieces saw a very girly and airy idea form on the runway as design after design floated down its length. The designs’ uniqueness was mostly in the details—a button here, a tuck there, a drape over there—because the general idea of many of the pieces was not entirely innovative. One example includes the long dresses with paisley prints that were presented, which have been seen before many times over the last Spring/Summer season, and are becoming a thing of the past. However, Saxena’s designs are well designed for the urban woman and their versatility have made them favourites among women everywhere.

In Harmony
Seattle-based In Harmony is also another super-duper environmentalist and socially conscious company. A lot of In Harmony’s focus lies in the production of the fabrics used and extra measures are taken to make sure that they are made by workers that are paid fairly and that are being impacted in a positive way from making these fabrics. Read more about In Harmony’s manufacturing here. Antonia Ramsey created a very clean and romantic line for her S/S ‘09 line presented at Vancouver Fashion Week. Sheer fabrics, ruffles, and ties made up most of the collection’s romantic aspect and the heart of the collection lay with her batik dyed silk fabrics. A quarter-length sleeved cream coat and the various baby-doll dresses with ruffles and pleats were definite favourites. Airy silk suits with a sheer striped pattern and structured fit brought thoughts of tropical paradises and of guayaberas, a type of cotton shirt commonly worn by men and boys in Latin American countries.

Artifaax
The first of Denise Brillon’s designs to step onto the runway brought a seemingly mismatched combination of words to mind: “punk”, “first nations art”, and “school uniforms”. Odd, yes, but Brillon made it work—the first set of her collection emanated an edginess and fun that may be hard to pull off in the same outfit, but certainly doable in fragments. Brillon put together long, high-waisted skirts and shorts in a green plaid fabric and paired them with t-shirts and long-sleeved tops that brandished first nations art-inspired prints. Some of the shirts incorporated the prints within stylized coats of arms embroidered onto the same green plaid fabric that was then loosely attached to the main body, giving it a very punky anglicized look. The skirts also sported oversize safety pins with feathers, bone, and shells on them. The rest of her collection was just as edgy: models wore bouffant-style hairdos with leather bands at their foreheads, exquisite beaded jewellery, and a slew of crowd pleasers such as a set of below-the-knee and tea length jersey dresses in lavender and grey with quarter length sleeves and flower prints.

Elroy Apparel

Leanne McElroy has a flair for designing easily wearable pieces that can be, at the same time, very unique. McElroy’s Spring/Summer ‘09 collection didn’t disappoint, and although there were a few pieces that didn’t stand out very much, there were certainly others that more than made up for it. McElroy’s designs have the look of a delicacy, yet they are also very precise and streamlined–like origami. In some of her designs pleats were placed along the body or at the chest–curved and straight–and served as a focal point for the outfit. Also, the pleats were placed strategically so as to flatter the wearer’s body shape. McElroy’s collection consisted mostly of neutral colours, but a sudden pop of electric blue seen in a few of the pieces added to her collection’s colour story without throwing it off balance completely. It was a very feminine collection also, and one that the Vancouver woman would find herself at ease in.