Beauty in High Park

High Park in Toronto has a nice little section of Sakura trees, or cherry blossom trees, that only bloom once a year in late April/early May. This past April I had a yearning to wander amongst the pretty pink blossoms and pretend that I was on vacation in Japan, or even Washington, D.C., enjoying the trees in full bloom. On a whim, I asked my amazing photographer friend Landon Speers if he would be up for an impromptu fashion shoot amongst the ephemeral blooms. In a day we managed to pull together a great team that had Landon's good pal Warren Hrycun assisting with photography, the lovely Brae Mason handling makeup/hair, and the beautiful Deirdre Buryk modeling my silk Atmos Dress. The saturated cobalt blue really stood out against that backdrop of pale pink flowers, I am super happy we did this while we could! One of my favourite things about the day, aside from spending it outside in the beautiful park, was the number of park visitors who began taking snapshots of what we were doing! We became something of a tourist attraction at that point, which actually ended up adding an interesting element to some of the shots. Here, check out some of the behind the scenes photos along with the real dealios.

Make-up party with pain au chocolat and strawberry strudels.

Landon taking some test shots.

Staging a shot in 2 parts (I'm floating!)

Attracting an audience.

How to put a model in a tree while wearing silk... this is something like Step 3.

Quick! Get a shot with the train!

And now the real deal:

Pretty Freedom!

On Sunday, Leigh and I spent a long day of shopping for plywood and screws and everything else necessary to construct a table for my studio. After that, I popped over to visit Jodee and Helena at their Pretty Freedom boutique at 167 Augusta Avenue. Located 1 block west of the heart of Toronto's vintage clothing shopping area, they've already begun to set themselves apart - and they're not even open yet!

It was a beautiful day, so they were set-up outside stuffing rows of cute vintage shoes, finishing signs, and just enjoying the fine weather. It's always a real pleasure being around these two who are so full of creativity and energy. Oh, and they're oh so fashionable too. Taking a peek at their shop and stock is proof of their good taste. 

The shop is decorated with some wonderfully unique furniture pieces, including a display table crafted from a discarded door, an old donated painter's ladder, antique mirrors, a charming chandelier-lit change room, and bamboo clothing racks - the latter being an honest creation from Jodee's Filipino self. 

What stock is already out is a charming selection of summer's must-have rompers, art-chic dresses, denim jackets, glamorous vintage party dresses, and jean shorts for both ladies and gents. Sure, every second-hand and vintage store may have the aforementioned items, but Pretty Freedom has done a really great job of cutting out the clutter you will find elsewhere. Here, you will find only items hand-picked for their quality and overall fashion aesthetic. That means that with everything looking so damn good, you'll have a hard time deciding which cute dresses to actually take home with you! Well, it's not all cute dresses. Some of the stuff in there is pretty bad ass, I must say, and so completely fun to wear. There are items for men and women, and the clothes have been steamed to perfection with essential oils to remove any of those unpleasant odours that sometimes keep people away from great vintage clothes.

The first pair of "mum bums" I pulled off their rack were a perfect fit - needless to say I now have them at home to wear on my bum. I had a fun time breaking in their change room - I think I tried on half the store. After a helpful consultation with Jodee I left with a number of fab outfits for my summertime fun-times. I did a little photoshoot at home with my goodies, please forgive my silly wannabe model poses and rather, get stoked about the clothes! They're officially opening next week (fingers crossed), so check them out soon - I'm certain you'll love Pretty Freedom!

The sweetest thing: Floral romper with lace collar

Saturday night fever: 70s disco dress with flounce neckline

Art bitch: 80s butterfly sleeve dress

Sunglasses at night: The little black dress with a twist - you can't see the great fringe trim at the neckline, or the cutout back.

La vie en rose: 70s pink pleated disco dress

The girl from Ipanema: Mum Bum shorts

MUM BUM

Can you tell I love the mum bum? You won't find quality Levis for a better price.

A Barong, Born Again

I've been super fortunate to have found such wonderful support from the Kapisanan Philippine Centre for Arts & Culture. It's been the wonderful team there that has kept me moving on numerous projects, including the Lady Maganda terno I made last November. Most recently I created a piece for the Vinta Gallery and re-launch of the Kapisanan website in April. I'm a little slow on this post, as the gallery has now been cleared out to make way for the Pretty Freedom pop up shop, opening very soon. Get excited! 


So, since you almost definitely missed the exhibit, here are some photos of my creation. My piece, titled Pagbalik Pasalubong focused on the changing nature of relationships when distance is involved, and was an exercise in reclaiming items that once meant something, giving them new life and new meaning. If you think this sounds like a load of poo, then try reading my full artist statement! 


I deconstructed a Barong Tagalog, which is a traditional men's shirt in the Philippines, and created a contemporary summer dress, great for layering over a bikini top or tank. Barongs come in all sorts of colours and cuts and feature different embroideries. I purchased this one in the Philippines in 2006. Many of them, including this one, are made of piña (fibres taken from pineapple leaves). It's a really great fabric that is sustainable, breathable on the body, and has an elegant look similar to linen. Piña is usually white or ivory in colour, but this shirt had been dyed with a gradient which gave it very contemporary look. I enjoyed creating this piece, I think it's quite a cute lil' number. It looks a little big on the judy, as I draped it on a size 8/10 judy, and this one is about a size 2/4. Oh well. The puff sleeve is detachable, and I do intend to make detachable butterfly sleeves to go with this dress. Stay tuned for those. In the meantime, if anyone is interested in purchasing this dress, it is for sale. Make me an offer. 

She Got Me

I'm still working on a super long blog post about Serpentinata (I HATE blogger publishing), but in the meantime, here's a little preview of a music video for a new song by Jhevon Paris called "She Got Me".  It features Pat K. of Stereos, and some vocals by Girlicious. To be honest, I had no idea who these people were before a great stylist, Madi Styles, asked to borrow some of my clothes for the shoot. I was super excited, and now that I see this clip I'm even more excited. Oh, and it turns out I actually like this song. You might notice that the major hook is a revamped chorus from a certain BSB song. Anyway, I'm super excited to see the full video!  In this clip you can catch a nice slow motion turn of a model wearing my Cotinga Jacket. There's also a behind the scenes video floating around where I noticed another model wearing my high-waisted silk pleat pants. I must say, they look gorgeous on her. Anyway, I'll post the full thing when it's finally in circulation. Until then, enjoy a whole 30 seconds.


P.S. Did you know that Stereos are from my lovely hometown of Edmonton? There's a deeper strange mutual friend connection story in there too that involves my past as a freelance "stylist" (HA!) and a music producer pal of mine, but it's actually not that interesting so I'll shut up now. KTHXBAI.

Atmos Dress

The major project of my semester was designing an evening wear dress. Yup, things move pretty slowly around here - almost a whole semester for one piece! Pretty boring I guess, but for the record we were draping something different every week. Anyhow, the dress was due the day after the John James event (see previous post), which was kind of good, as it forced me to get my shit done well before the due date. You should have seen the madness of the lab that day.

6PM, if your dress was not on the rolling rack in that room before it was wheeled out of the room, you didn't get a grade, and your dress would definitely not be in the 2nd/3rd year fashion show. Seconds until that rack was rolling out the door students were frantically sewing on buttons, hammering rivets, and sewing final seams for each other. Even though my dress was done, I spent the last 10 minutes wrestling with hangers, trying to get my long dress to stay on 1 or 2 hangers, and managed to almost miss the rack! They were moving towards the door as someone finally yelled at me to get my dress on a damn rack, and I joined the handful of ladies chasing it as it wheeled out the doors. Phewf. That was close.

Well the fashion show has come and gone, I've received my marks for the dress (I did well!), and now it's time to arrange a professional photo shoot with this dress. I love it, I must say. It's another versatile piece made of this really light, gorgeous silk that moves like water. It's a halter dress, with a layering top skirt that can be tied around the waist or around the neck. The top skirt can also be tied as a dress in itself, in at least 2 different ways, so I guess you have a total of at least 5 looks built in with this baby, but actually, many more. Can you do the math? And as always, I'm taking orders! Enjoy.

Inspiration board - Satellite & Aerial Photographs of Natural and Atmospheric Phenomena.

Watercolour - one of several illustrations created of the dress.

On the runway (tied incorrectly, unfortunately).

Appliqué detail.

Down the runway at the Arcadian Court.

More photos will be posted in my forthcoming Serpentinata post.

Whirlwind Month

It's been some of the craziest weeks of my life this year. School projects have been constant and demanding including a major evening wear dress project and having a heavy hand in organizing a large fashion show. As well, I've been involved in some extracurricular fashion activities to keep me extra busy. I'm going to try to catch up on my posts now that school projects are finally done - I handed in my last project on Friday - a corset with peplum that I am pretty in love with. Photos to come.

For now, we start with John James at The Red Carpet Room's Spring Trend Report. The event was sponsored by Fuze, and featured spring fashions by several Canadian designers such as Jessica Biffi, Brazen Hussy, and Lizares, and also featured an accessory showcase in which John James stole the show. Visit John James here.

Setting up at The Fifth

Juliann getting decked out in armour.

Juliann and myself with super talented designer Erin Ignacio (centre).

Rocking the jewels.

A Fashion Family

One of my brothers is in Korea for a year. He recently met someone in the Korean fashion scene, and was recruited to model. It's about time! Matyi has the right look and build for this, and I just saw some of his first photo shoot!! It's great! Go Matyi! There are some real gooders in there, I couldn't help but smile the whole way through. So excited, I hope he keeps going with this! As well, the designs from, what I believe is a design group(?) - La Mer Ma Maison - are quite fantastic - wonderful stuff that I wouldn't mind getting a few samples of... And I hope he gives me V.I.P. passes to all future fashion parties he'll be rolling up into. Oh, and maybe one day he'll wear one of my designs, thereby plummeting me into stardom. Oh, am I getting ahead of myself? Mmmmmmaybe? Who cares. Great job Matyi!! You look fantastic!

Untitled from Chohongjun on Vimeo.