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MONTRÉAL - FASHION CAPITAL WITH A FLAIR
Marie Saint-Pierre, winner of a Griffe d'Or Laureate and a bronze medal at the Mecene Award contest in Los Angeles, was the first Québec designer to be accepted to New York City's Salon La Coterie. In 1993, the American TV show Front Runner chose her as one of the three most interesting personalities in Montréal and did a special coverage of her. Nadya Toto's thousand-square-foot boutique called L'espace has three levels linked by a silver staircase. The striking architecture and minimalist decor designed by Michel Prete serve to highlight the apparel and accessories showcased like objets d'art. "I wanted to create a remarkable space with a soothing ambiance blending Japanese austerity with Occidental mellowness," Nadya Toto explains. L'Espace has carefully-designed lighting with miniature halogen projectors, beige velour columns, murals, a marble and marquetry floor, an old stone fountain and a video screen at the entrance flashing images of designers collections.
Montréal fashion designers are also inspired by Montréal's performance arts scene, its thriving multi-cultural life and the richness and diversity of the traditions and tastes of immigrants from every corner of the world. Montréal's fashion scene reflects a world vision, drawing upon influences from Native North American and African tribal designs, to classic European lines to Japanese minimalism to psychedelic South American Indian colors and employsfabrics and materials from every corner of the earth.
Montréal's hive of fashion design activity is stimulated by a variety of institutions, organizations, internet resources, fashion shows, competitions and other special events. Montréal's L'École supérieure de mode de Montréal (ESMM) created by the LaSalle College Group and the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) offers degree programs in Fashion Management and Design and has adjunct fashion schools in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Istanbul, Shanghai, Casablanca and Rabat, Morocco. As part of its fashion program, Montréal's Marie-Victorin CEGEP offers a two-year a fur design option and each year nine students are sent on a study internship to the SAGA International Design Centre in Denmark. A variety of contests and competitions, afford Québec designers the chance to come out to strut their stuff. At the Fashion Design Excellence Young Québec Designers Contest held annually in April during the Salon de la Jeunesse, students and young professionals from all over Québec participate in eight competitions covering fashion, textile, shoe and jewellery design, with $40,000 in scholarships awarded to finalists. Special exhibitions celebrate Montréal's obsession with fashion, fashion, fashion! Weird & Wonderful : Hats of the 1950s, showing off 85 hats with period illustrations, fashions and music ran last summer and autumn at the Marsil Museum in Saint-Lambert (514-923-6601). This year, the Museum has brought out the most beautiful wedding fashions in its collection from the mid-19th Century to the Second World War and in Old Montreal. And, in Old Montréal, the Marché Bonsecours has ongoing craft exhibits and sales of unique Québécois of designer handcrafted scarves, shawls, coats, hats. As for designers boutiques, you'll find them on rue Crescent, rue Laurier and on rue Saint-Denis in Montréal's Latin Quarter. For hats, hats, hats! -- berets, rain hats and designer chapeaux by 20 Montréal designers-- it's Le Sieur Duluth (4107 rue Saint-Denis / Tel.:514-843-8933). Québécois painter Claude Théberge designed the dramatic wall mural at the boutique Revenge (3852 rue Saint-Denis / Tel.: 843-4379), which features classic couturier designs and accessories for men and women, by 30 Québécois designers, including Jean-Claude Poitras, Marie Saint-Pierre, Michel Desjardins and Maurice Ferland. Edited by Madelyn Miller Photo courtesy of Tourisme Montreal |
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TM
On
and off the streets, Montréal flaunts its flair for fashion design all year long. Long
known as the official "Headquarters of the Canadian Rag Trade," Montréal now
has a new fashion district on rue de la Montagne near the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts,
where high profile, prize-winning designers like Marie Saint-Pierre, Karen Perry and Nadya
Toto have installed themselves in fabulous showrooms and other designers are flocking to
sign leases. 
One block west on jazzy Crescent Street, known for its café-terrasses,
Irish bars and English comedy clubs, five other fashion boutiques are opening their doors
at #2140 and #2142 in a retail space owned by the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts. The new
tenants include Dénommée Vincent, Shan, Colette Chicoine's Lola en Solo, Hélène
Barbeau, Christian Chenail and Jean-Claude Poitras. 
In
Montréal fashion is a four-season word and Montréal fashion designers make the most of
the temperature extremes of a four-season climate. They are inspired to create fashions in
every material --from traditional furs and leathers, silks, linen and hand-loomed wools,
to space-age synthetics, and even plastics, metals and recycled materials. 
Latin flamboyance and North American practicality --the creations of
Québec's fashion designers reflect the best of both sensibilities. One fashion design
company that celebrates this approach is Lili-Les-Bains, which works directly with clients
to fulfill their fashion dreams, creating made-to-measure fashions from bathing suits to
evening gowns in sizes 8 to 22. The founder of Lili-Les-Bains, Montréal's only
made-to-measure company, Louise Daoust, says "It's about time people realize that
size six is not the only ideal. Every woman should have the dress of her dreams and size
makes no difference! It's the way a woman dresses, the way she feels about how she
dresses, not the size, that counts." Combining European styles and cuts and American
common sense, Lili-Les-Bains uses gorgeous fabrics and has clients, some quite famous, who
come from Monaco, Russia and even Saudi Arabia for made-to-measure fashions.