The Brave

I barely remember when it started. I have a somewhat clearer recollection of how it began. All I know now is that I'm in the middle of the whirlwind that is starting a new clothing company. 

We are The Brave Clothing Company, Inc. "We" consists of myself (duh), and Stefan Paul Dehod, a very good friend of mine and kindred crazy person. Stefan's dislike for sleeves and love of fun and fashion is what sparked this company. We specialize in men's tank tops. Really rad ones. Ones like you've never seen. Better than the average tank. The best, perhaps. I mean, it's all subjective, really, but we are kind of very stoked on our designs.  What's even more exciting is that we only intend to get crazier, more fun, more badass, more creative and in general have more fun with it all!

And although we are focused on men's tanks, Tala Kamea will be collaborating with The Brave to produce a select few women's tank styles. Think matching his and hers for all the cute couples that make you feel bad about your own relationship, or lack thereof. We're talking hot tops. Perfect for summer loving. So get with it and get one. And one for your friend.

We'll be kicking off the line with a preview on April 18 at Pretty Freedom in Toronto, ON, where the goods will be available for your viewing and purchasing pleasure. Soon after we hope to be set up online, and if you're in Edmonton on May 3, 4 or 5 visit us at the 14th Annual Royal Bison Craft and Art Fair. Stefan will be there slinging tanks in a tank, built like a tank, but probably not tanked. You should take him for a beer afterwards, however, and see what happens.

See you in the sun!

I'm in ELLE!

Pick up a copy of the July 2012 issue of ELLE Canada magazine. There's a brief write-up on my recent research and work. Thanks ELLE!

Collection photos by Jennifer Toole // Bio photo by Hanah Chung

Listen.

A lot has happened in the past few months. This past week I submitted my thesis for my Master of Arts in Fashion, entitled "Sound As Signifier: Communication and Expression Through the Sound of Clothing." It's about time I talk a little about my research and what I've been up to the past 4 months.

Background:

Without going into too much detail, I've been researching, in general, the sound of clothing. Most analyses of fashion are related to the visual (with good reason), discussing what and how is communicated through the visual elements of dress. I was interested in looking at what role the sounds of our clothes play in communicating, but I also wanted to understand how sound could lead to a more holistic appreciation of our clothes, to a fuller sensory experience. Sounds kind of hippie dippy, I know. Anyhow, if you want to know more, you can read my final paper (I know you won't.)
In addition to a major research paper on the topic, I have also been hard at work creating a small collection of fashion pieces. Each piece was designed with a focus on the sounds they would produce (without ignoring visual aesthetics), as a means of encouraging greater interaction with and self-expression through the clothing. How can the wearer use the sounds to communicate, and what is being communicated? How do the sounds change the ways in which the wearer interacts with and experiences the piece? These were some ideas I wanted to explore through this collection.

Production:

Earlier in the year I was awarded the ELLE Canada Fashion Graduate Award. This generous award helped me to produce this collection, which uses a lot of costly materials including leather, copper, and phosphor bronze wrapped guitar strings (at least 150 of them). Also, a ridiculous amount of taffeta and organza.
Each piece is inspired by a section of the orchestra: woodwinds, brass, strings, percussion, and I have included voice as well.
My dear friend Landon Speers helped me record the sounds of each piece. In addition to being a very talented photographer, he also produces music under the moniker Headaches. In his in-home recording studio I "played" each piece, exploring the various sounds the garments are capable of producing.
These sounds were then sent to another dear friend, Cecil Frena, who is currently producing music and touring as Born Gold. He is so awesome, that while on tour he took the time to create an original music track from the sounds I sent him. This track is the score for a fashion video we shot in March, and it's kind of crazy. Listening to this piece you would never know that the audio samples came entirely from pieces of "clothing."
Filmed by the talented Greg Biskup, the video features two "models": Eleanor Espiritu (of Toronto band Mirror Phase) and Cosima Friesen (part/parcel). I was adamant that the video should feature musicians in the garments, as musicians greatly understand the importance of self-expression through sound. These two ladies looked amazing in my pieces, and really put on a good show.
The editing was done by the talented and lovely Natalie Sirianni.

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Gratitude:

I am so incredibly thankful to all those individuals who have contributed their talents to this project. In addition to the aforementioned friends, I have a few more people to thank for their help and participation so far. Here they are:
My dear mother: gave me two weeks of endless help and support with sewing, beading, cutting, cooking, and cleaning (Super Mama).
Leigh: my loving partner, who puts up with my enormous mess as I play the role of a creative person and runs errands for me when I'm freaking out. He also played a huge role in the creation of an integral piece in the collection (the Strings skirt). 
Jodinand: my creative sounding board and super hilarious stylish stylist. He also helped with some hand-sewing and can do pretty much anything you ask him to (which includes procuring take-out beers at 2am from a neighbourhood restaurant...).
Matyi: my bro, he helped with just about anything I asked of him, and graciously let me take over his apartment for the shoot.
Annalie + Adeline: lovely ladies who donated their time to prep elements of the collection and help keep me sane.
Cora: amazing hair stylist for the shoot.
Melissa: came through last minute to do the beautiful makeup for the shoot.
Hanah: snapped some awesome behind the scenes shots for me.
Erin Macnab: took the time to act as mannequin for the photos in my thesis paper.
Jennifer Toole: snapped some gorgeous shots of my pieces for ELLE.
Victoria Ellingham: my lovely model for the aforementioned shoot.
Vinny Tang: hair and makeup artist extraordinaire for the shoot.
Daniel Laxer: edited my paper and provided some great insight and suggestions.

And of course my whole family who is rooting for me, my friends for their constant support, and my fellow grad students who empathize with me and understand what madness this is.

I can't thank everyone enough for their support, and if I missed anyone, my apologies. I am truly blessed to have such amazing people in my life, and to have the opportunity to pursue such projects. Mad love.

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Behind the Scenes Photos (courtesy of Hanah Chung)

Pear cut.

I lent my friend Kate this one-off piece: a stiff, sculptural, pear-cut dress. Little did I know she was styling it on a man. I'm really pleased with the look! Anyone else into this?
Fashion-forward gentlemen... it's still for sale...

Photographer: Jiali Ou
Stylist: Kate O'Reilly
Model: Terry

Crystal Methodology

I have a few pieces for sale in Miracle Thieves. They are made of a black, coated cotton denim, and are ready to be broken in by a loving new owner. The pieces feature raw edges and distressed details paired against sharp, precise "edges." One piece has already been nabbed, so don't sleep on these. They are also super limited in number so you won't be caught at a party wearing the same thing as that hussy over there in the corner... Happy holiday partying!

 

































In studio:

Cuttle Shuttle

Check out how awesome Meaghan is. She's doing her cuttlefish dance atop the Toronto space shuttle, aka city hall. This is dress 2/2 (see below), again with an original print designed and digitally printed by me on silk organza. It is happily on its way to Montreal, where it will be reunited with its strong-shouldered counterpart.

  

Taladactyl Dress

It's been a while, I know. I've been busy procrastinating on various projects. This is one of them.
A deconstruct/reconstruct project for my sustainability workshop class. I deconstructed a large windbreaker that I bought at a wardrobe sale for $3, and turned it into what I call a Taladactyl dress. Inspired by (mostly) pterodactyls, birds and flying machines. I still need to finish it properly, and take some slick photos, but here it is. Visit the tumblr I set up for the project, in which I discuss my process and inspiration a little more.
vintagereincarnate.tumblr.com
Keep your eyes on the skies for a full collection of Taladactyl dresses in the future.

Jacket before reconstruction

Look 1

Look 2

Look 3

Look 4 (features removable top skirt)

Place Called Grace

I'm excited to say that another one of my pieces has made an appearance in the Toronto music scene. My Petalos Corset was borrowed last Thursday, August 7 for Saidah Baba Talibah's video release party at the Gladstone Hotel. The party, presented by Exclaim!, was for her new video "Place Called Grace." She seems to have such an interesting and intense personality, and her look is quite unique - I was so curious to see how this garment would look on her. Worn backwards, the corset looks incredibly, well, how do you say it, "badass." 
Yes. Definitely badass. 

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:

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.