LG Fashion Week - Photo Diary of Vanessa Petey

Hey guys!

As you know, LG Fashion Week here in beautiful Toronto has come to a close for this season. The last time I blogged I told you about y first day and how excited I was to see what the rest of

the week had in store. I must admit, despite the fact that we spent a lot of our time moving benches and taking orders, it really was ridiculously cool being backstage and seeing all the fashion drama happening right up

close. Of course, the entire time I had my BlackBerry in my hand and I took asmany pictures

and videos as I possibly could. :)

We'd get there in the morning

(12:45pm...if you stopped for a grande nonfat half sugar free caramel white mocha withwhip and caramel drizzle... I know I'm out of control, no need to remind me) and then we would have an

hour or two at the most to arrange all of the seating, place cards and gift bags in the studio before the shows. Every detail mattered. We had to measure the spaces between the benches to make sure they were exactly straight and aligned with one another. The place cards themselves were a big deal - all having to be lined up and taped down to ensure it was as visually appealing to the industry people as possible.

Obviously the stuff I really loved seeing was the sometimes

outrageous behaviour of the people in the industry backstage . Like for example, Jeanne Becker had a special seat at every single studio show, but she didn't actually show up to any of them. There were 6'11"

models running around everywhere in shoes that I'm sure they needed special training to walk in, not to mention the people running the show who continued to insist that the "socialites" be taken care of first and foremost. :P Love it.But that's so boring.So here are some pictures for you to check out of my backstage fashion week adventures! Some of them are horribly blurry or grainy, but forgive me, it was a panicked situation at

best.

Thanks!!

Who Cares What Vanessa Petey Thinks: Talbot Runhof 2011 Collection

For this series, I’ve chosen some of the top designers in the industry to review as my favorites from the Spring 2011 Fashion Weeks. The collection I’ll be talking about in this post is not one of the best known, not from one of the fashion capitals of the world and not on the list of legends yet, but it is absolutely one of the best collections of the Spring 2011 Paris Fashion week where they showed this past September: Talbot Runhof. Johnny Talbot (American) and Adrian Runhof (German) are the designers at the helm of this unique line that boasts they make clothes for real women: clothes that do not wear the girl. This collection was inspired by Lucille Ball, the late 1950s elegant style that the image of her represents. One of the major trends of this season was the appearance of classic styles, patterns and silhouettes as opposed to modern shapes, and futuristic styling. No collection demonstrates the simple elegance of a beautifully designed Spring Collection than Talbot Runhof Spring 2011.

The show opens with a model in strappy shoes and bright red lipstick walking down th runway in a dress that resembles liquid chocolate draped generously over her body. The fabric isbrown chiffon and a flowing train of it hangs loosely from the waist of the asymmetric, curve hugging dress. Dress after dress, the luxurious, but fairly simple patterned fabric is wrapped snugly around the model in a feat of draping that only superior training could have prepared them for.

What is fabulous about this collection and I think the reason why I love it so much is that the clothes are all extremely wearable, but maintain an elegance and glamour that would make any girl feel like Marilyn Monroe. Do I want my curves accentuated by outrageously sexy flowing chiffon? Yes please.

They start to add more colour to the palet as the collection progresses. Details are added like tuxedo shirt buttons, black trim and floral designs. The evening wear follows with an extremely elegant floor length gown in lavender with tiny flower prints scattered about the dress. Immediately following is a little shiny body suit, perfect for a day on the beach in Los Angeles.

They finish up with more stunning evening wear. The tiny flower patterns of the earlier pieces in the collection have now grown to be oversized and exaggerated, contrasting beautifully with the final piece – the full length gold evening gown that will no doubt make red carpet appearances this award season.

Over all this collection was beautifully executed by two designers who definitely seem to have a grasp on what real women want to wear. They take the trends of the high fashion industry and bring them down to an accessible level that you don’t have to be a celebrity to reach. I can’t wait to see what these dudes come up with next year!

Until then!

The Wedding Industry as it is Linked to Fashion Throughout History

I’m currently working on a wedding gown for a friend and have thus been doing a lot of research on wedding dresses, their history and function and the various available types of gowns one can choose. The bridal industry makes $50 billion a year worldwide, which is only a fraction of the $900 billion that the overall fashion industry is responsible for. In this post I want to discuss the place of fashion in the wedding industry and how it happens that women spend more money on gowns than any other part of the wedding.

Back in the old days a woman’s wedding gown said everything about her family and social standing in the eyes if her future husband. Thus, the wedding gowns of the time featured more and more expensive fabric the wealthier the family was. The poorest girls in town would wear their Sunday bests to their weddings while the richest would have a dress maker design a custom gown to celebrate their big day. I suppose that’s my job.

But the trends of the old days changed completely when Queen Victoria wore white on her wedding day to symbolize her virginity going into the marriage. Suddenly, the wedding dress trend changed from wearing the fanciest gown possible to wearing a dress reflective of the fashion of the period – the only restriction being that it must be white. In the 60s there were little white mini dresses with flowy sleeves and in the 80s big poofy gowns inspired by Princess Diana’s masterpiece dress designed by David and Elizabeth Emanuel in 1981.

Of course, like anything else, wedding dress design was affected by the changing social climate throughout the 21^st century. As the women’s rights movements progressed, so did women’s ideas of a fashion and the unnecessary traditions associated with marriage. Soon women were wearing anything they wanted for their big days, striking the fancy white conventions and expressing their personal styles with wide variety and colour. In my humble opinion, the notion of the wedding dress and indeed, the wedding is one than exists solely to allow women one chance to buy a gown better than any other gown. The dress usually corresponds not only with the bride’s social standing but also their personal character, and their political, social and religious beliefs.

So it’s complicated, this choice. The choice of which dress is the dress that will represent the bride the best is one that is often taken into deep consideration by many stylists and designers. As for myself, when I started the current piece I’m working on, I thought I had the best idea ever and drew it out and hoped it would please the bride in question. Though she did love the idea, there was a seemingly minor detail which was not to the taste of the groom which caused me to put my entire design under a microscope. As a result, I have now come up with three distinct, but similar designs represented in three prototype dresses for her to tear apart and decide which pieces she likes the best.

I was warned not to get into doing wedding shit by my mentor Patricia Fell once. She did it herself for a time and warned me of the psycho brides and the overzealous family members, but she also gave me some compelling advice. She said that before the wedding, when making a wedding dress, the dress maker must have regular fittings with the bride, with increased frequency as the final date approaches. This process is not only to accommodate the ever fluctuating weight of the stressed out bride, but to act as a sort of psychiatrist, allowing the bride to vent her stress, all the while appreciating the precision of the dress making process. It’s something that must be done in order to establish trust between the bride and her dress maker as well as allow for a better final outcome overall.

Very interesting, the whole idea of working in the bridal industry. At the moment, I love the thought. But perhaps Patricia is right and the stress of working with bridezillas won’t be worth the fabulous money that can be made from these endeavors. Yet another decision, the answer to which I’m sure will reveal itself in due time.

Until then!

Fashion Design From a Backward Perspective – Le Costumier

Sometimes I imagine what I want to do after I graduate from design school and have the precious certification that says I can dress people better than most. The obvious choice is that I would love to see our own label Petey the Troll Apparel become successful. If this happens, look for the most eccentric little shop on Queen West and you’ll find inside three floors; a store for the general public to browse our latest merch, a studio where we create our clothes and have top models come in for special fittings, and finally a loft on top where we have our regular high profile events and parties. I spend a lot of time dreaming.

But there are other options I could potentially explore as a designer should the above dream happen to not come true. One of these options could be the other love of my design life – costume design. For over three years now I’ve been insanely lucky to have a job working behind the scenes in the wardrobe department of the St. Clair College Musical Theatre Program. For this job, I assist the head costume designer while she decides on colour pallets, unique costume concepts and how we are going to acquire or build each of the necessary pieces.

Stop for a second and think of your favorite movie or tv show. Imagine that before the show is made, you only have the script and the actors and they tell you to dress them all in appropriate clothes for the corresponding scenes. Who are these characters? What do these types of people wear? It involves a lot of knowledge of the history of fashion design and the types of clothing that people have worn throughout history for various reasons throughout life. For example, Patricia Field was the costume designer for Sex and the City. She needed to choose clothing that fit each of those characters, all the while keeping the designers, director, actors and most importantly, the fans happy at all times.

If I choose to go this route I could imagine working on something really amazing like Mad Men which the talented costume designer Janie Bryant has designed for its duration. This is a great example: I don’t know if you watch Mad Men, but if you don’t, you definitely should. There are three main female characters in the show right from the start. They are the housewife – Betty, the career woman – Peggy and the bombshell – Joan. Keeping in mind the period (obviously 1960s fashion was much different than our own) Bryant needs to think about what the character is doing in the show, what her personality is, the history of the character, their whereabouts etc.

Then there’s the ever present issue of design in any capacity – that fact that human beings are not all the same size, and that clothing has to accommodate such an issue. This means the costume designer (if she doesn’t have a room full of assistants to take care of it for her, that is...) would have to have a considerable knowledge of clothing construction to match sizes and make alterations to various items of clothing in order to make them fit the characters correctly.

Costuming is an art which is very similar yet very different than costume design. Do I need to choose one of these two paths for my career or can I manage to be successful in both? We’ll see.