Montreal Young Uns'

Needless to say, talking up the so-called young un's of Montreal proved to be a harder task than writing about the slightly more straight forward biggies.  I currently have a window open containing 30 tabs that are doing that annoying scrolling thing.  Blame it on the nature of the welcoming people of Montreal where through meeting one person, I would meet more people, all of them doing something creative/fashion-related and I'd be going back to my hotel, looking up business cards and doing a bit of research.  Whilst I'm calling this 'young uns', some of these labels that I'll be talking about have actually been around for while but as I'm all about the categorisation here with my Montreal-related posts, I thought it best to keep everyone on the same page.  I could have easily also done a post just on Montreal's jewellery designers alone but seeing as I'm weaving some semblance of a story here, it made sense to also place them in the context that I saw them; through Montreal's retail scene.  I was told I wouldn't be blown away by Montreal's designer shopping but on the contrary, what I found was useful to seeing how local talent is supported and through what avenues designers are selling their work.

I suppose the best starting point would be Reborn.  Ah... the e-store that first gave me an up close glimpse of Rad Hourani's bleak and black pieces.  The owner Brigitte is also a supporter of other Montreal-born talent, the first to buy Denis Gagnon as well as Complex Geometries.  In essence though, Reborn is a curator of all things black, strong and imbued with power, in fashion across the world as opposed to any one specific region.  The rollcall of names includes Sandra Backlund, Rick Owens, Natalia Brilli, Bless, Acne, Alexander Wang... the staples of most credible boutiques in major cities really...

Brand spanking new Denis Gagnon navy fringing.... really stunning up close...

The location is in the Old Ports/Old Town area which means that Reborn stands as this tiny nugget nestled in amongst tourist traps and err... pony carriages but I sort of like that it stands out in a part of town that distinctly feels 'European'... apologies for that holiday-speaky generalisation...

Gotta give some love to the Brits that Reborn stocks...Krystof Stroznya being a newer addition to older labels like Preen...

They've just had their new batch of Philippe Roucou scarves delivered... the largest size I've seen beyond the normal 90x90 squares...

Reborn's Montreal-based come in the form of glistening or perhaps purposely not so glistening jewellery designers.  First up, Arielle de Pinto, who probably needs no introductions here given that I'm a huge fan of her knitted delicate chains.  I'm excited to see her large scale body pieces which are sort of the more delicate and wispy counterpart to my structured Fannie Shiavoni chainmail pieces.

Arielle has been collaborating with a physicist who can blast laser beams at metal, in order to permanently colour the metal into all kinds of metallic shades... would love to see these colours on the body pieces and masks too...as well as seeing the laser dude in action...

Next up, is Harakiri, designed by Mireille Boucher.  Jewellery evolved from all things in the wild, naturalistic or organic is nothing new of course given that we've been inundated with that specific jewellery genre.  However, Boucher has been doing these sort of designs for nearly ten years.  She's also Denis Gagnon's accessories collaborator, though her designs for him are far more bespoke than these delicate bird claws, sharks teeth and hollowed out shells.

We then made a mini stop at Unicorn which is just achingly cute in the way it's decorated.  Everything about it makes you think of exactly what the name of the shop suggests... unicorns, ponies, roses and all things pretty like that.  Their support of Montreal-based creatives extends not just to designers but to bloggers like local lifestyle blog Lake Jane, who have currently taken over Unicorn's window with a stream of polaroids and all things Lake Jane-like.   

They're also selling these paintings by illustrator Paule Trudel Bellemare - she also has an Etsy shop too if you fancy a commission or two...

Actually Etsy links are going to litter this post because with most of the local Montreal designers that are selling in stores like Unicorn's, they also have their own Etsy thang going on which is especially true in amongst jewellery designers like Miju with her ceramic feathers and Noemiah's real feathery goodness...

Down the road on the very very very long Boulevard St Laurent and you have Les Etoffes, which is a much more international affair.  Much of its selection reminds me of stores you get quite a bit in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  The interior had Style Salvage Steve written all over it... down to the err... slightly salacious/humourous toile de jouy-style wallpaper...

I must admit I got distracted by its non-Montreal offerings such as shoes by Dieppa Restrepo... come on... nude patent... allow me my weakness...

... as well as this swimsuit by Lover... was thinking of heading into the hotel pool and almost splashed out USD255 on these delightfully big briefs and bikini set... almost did it to also satiate my Dolce and Gabbana S/S 10 floral big knicker fixation too...

But floral pants aside, Les Etoffes does do its Canuck support bit by stocking brands like Haiiku and the widely successful Wings and Horns, pictured in this pile of grey jersey...

Gotta love the carved wooden bum door stop...

My next store excursion was actually an all day affair because the store owner in question is none other than Angie Johnson aka the famous Montrealite behind I Heart Norwegian Wood aka someone I've probably exchanged a bazillion emails before and therefore someone who I felt I could go up to and give a bear hug having not met each other in the flesh before.  Perhaps we were fated to meet in her current city of resident, as we seem to have missed each other somehow when she did come over to London last time round.  I may have gushed a little too openly with someone I hadn't actually met before but hey ho... the internet made me do it!   

Angie, together with her now-hubby Tyson (I need to further probe her about her $5 wedding dress... how, what, why and where are the pics???) own Headquarters Galerie and Boutique which combines their love of art and fashion, and a specific type of art and fashion within those realms.  HQ does support a lot of Montreal-based creatives and through the mystical powers of friendship groups, again, a whole web of people who they stock were spun...

Do you spy the Ikea Stolmen system - this is arriving in bits and pieces next week for my wardrobe... I'll be documenting that palava next week when a pole will have possibly toppled onto my head... fun times...

I particularly loved their selection of books, graphic novels and general printed matter that they had in framed, stationary and zine form...

... with Worn featuring quite heavily... check the latest issue for a feature on Angie... the few issues I picked up there were a relief from my non-working touch screen on the flight home...

As the name of the store points out, HQ is also a gallery too, which is housed in the basement...

In the store, of course I Heart Norwegian Wood features though Angie has said that she has been concentrating on shipping orders to her stockists as well as fulfilling Etsy orders so sometimes her store might be low on a bit of Norwegian Wood lovin'. 

Again, there are more Montrealite Etsy designers that Angie has picked up for the store... I'm sure someone needs to investigate a fuller story tracking the relationship between Montreal creatives and Etsy because there does seem to be a strangely high proportion and beyond the ones I have noted here, I'm sure there are more!

Macrame motif pieces by Colourblindsmarties // Vintage dyed lace earrings by This Ilk

La Raffinerie does refound/refashioned jewellery...

I have a fleaing/thrifting tale to tell thanks to Angie and two of the fellow flea-ers are also stocked in the store... Elaine Ho specialises in silver jewellery but also makes leather bags...  she gave me line of the week by saying "Quebecois women love a good bell sleeve..."  I'll leave you to interpret the fuller context of that comment...

Yana also joined us on our flea activities and I suppose for her, it's a good sourcing ground as she uses vintage/second hand fabrics to make her wares...

 

A HQ staple is Audrey Cantwell who like Angie, has gotten a lot of blogger lovin' with her popular Etsy store Black Market Baby.  Black obviously dominates her clothes but so do cosomo prints, plays with sheer fabrics, textures and free form shapes that make the black less weighted and serious...   

Through all the designers I had met via Angie and speaking to Angie herself, she showed a vastly different side to Montreal, as they were mostly people who weren't from Montreal originally... she hinted at something of a French/English divide that is possibly too complex to go into here and even I only grasped some weak inklings of this issue.  The divide/diversity for me is perhaps a good thing to look upon as an outsider given that it seemingly produces an array of designers in the scene that don't actually stick to one particular aesthetic...  

My final stop is one that I was intrigued by because I had happed upon it entirely by accident.  Through the lovely Adrian Corsin, who used to write my daily dosage of well-articulated fashion writing, Fashion Verbatim, I met Andrew Ly and Melissa Matos, and it turns out that I had written about their joint project Fantasme for Dazed a while back.  I just didn't know it was the same Andrew and Melissa from Montreal until I got home that night after dinner and did some Googling - memory like a sieve here I tells ya.  Multi-disciplinary is one way of putting what Andrew and Melissa do and how they work makes me excited about what they will do next.  They have only very very recently opened their new venture Trusst Club.  I sort of took the group out of our pre-arranged schedule to make a detour, 'trussting' my instincts that what Andrew and Melissa had done was good and thankfully I was right. 

Trusst Club functions as both boutique and creative agency, with the latter strand concentrating on bespoke solutions in printed and web visual material as well as events co-ordination.  Between Andrew and Melissa, they seem to have a lot of pies up their sleeves, getting involved in photography, styling, designing, exhibition curation and other modes of visual output... here is some of Andrew's older design work which I think sows good seed for Andrew taking to design again for Trusst Club, the label...

The boutique part of Trusst Club is still a work in progress and the space was beautifully sparse when I visited it but then again, it had only been open over a month or so during a tricky trans-season period.  Trusst Club currently has some impressive pieces on board for their beautiful vision such as Tillman Lauterbachs, Hartmann Nordenholz, labels that I rarely see in London...

Objects of desire from Bless...

Pieces by Latinen and Derek Lawlor...

Moving into Canadian territory... Jeremy Laing who I'm glad has also been picked up by Andrew of The Convenience Store...

As we were entering the store, Andrew and Melissa were hard at work shooting away with model Shaun Ross...

I loved the selection of magazines Trusst Club had... particularly 'I Love You' - yes, another love-based fashion title...

I've forgotten the name of the artist who made this crystal ball pulley piece on the left which Melissa is demonstrating but it looked effective moving around the concrete space, sprinkling light about... // The plaster cast is by Montreal-based artist Himo Martin...

I'm sure Trusst Club will unearth more designers such as Dane Richards here, who caught the eye of Lee Carter from Hintmag who was with us.  Dane is into loops... lots of them and has worked them into his debut collection which takes textures in black to another level.  Apologies for my warped photography but the pieces I promise are 100% blackest of the blacks...

Weirdly, we then bumped into him down the road.  I was told I would 'know it' if I saw Dane, connecting his appearance and his designs.  I'm not sure what that says about his style but he definitely stood out on the quiet street...

The loops that are worked into various voluminous pieces for both men and women remind me a little of Derek Lawlor's work except being more free and wayward... kind of like a pom pom that comes out of its cardboard rings and takes its own course...

Lenny Pier Ramos isn't directly connected with Trusst Club but I also though it was a small world that I ended up meeting him at this dinner instigated Adrian.  I know his work again through Dazed as he was featured as a new designer in the magazine as well as online.  I still remember his startlingly beautiful look book images - some just get ingrained in your head like that, regardless of whether the clothes are something you would wear yourself.  Ramos is from Montreal but studied in Antwerp and now works in Paris for Louis Vuitton menswear... not so much an independent designer to watch out for but definitely a talent to be eagle eyed about...

This is all probably getting to be a lot to take in but suffice to say Trusst Club has a lot of endeavours to be getting on with and be excited about, galvanising the fashion scene in Montreal and making things happen whether it involves 'official' means or not.  I'll leave you with some images from Matos and Ramos' jewellery collaboration Powerhaus, a project they'll be carrying on with.  I've probably dropped so much information here that I should probably boil it down into a design/fashion family tree.  Angie and Tyson with their band of vintage-focused, eclectic designers and artists who have embraced platforms like Etsy as their gateway to the world.  Melissa and Andrew with their own group of creatives who sit on a different aesthetic tree altogether and are making things happen through collaboration and again not limiting themselves to the city of Montreal by connecting with people in New York and Paris.  I hear a bi-annual publication is on its way... and now my head is spinning... I may have posted 50+ images here... how else do I hone in the point though that Montreal has a lot to give?  I'll bludgeon you guys with a load more extra shots if I have to...