WP6 nationalpost.com NATIONAL POST, SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 2011W E E K E N D P O S T

Ahoy! Four ways to make spring stripes a shore thing.

AYE AYE , C A PTA I N !

Heels by IsabelToledo for Payless,$99 at select stores

(payless.com)T-shirt,

$28 at Reitmans(reitmans.com)

Minidress,$79.90 at Jacob

(jacob.ca)

Skirt,$24.99 at Winners

(Winners.ca)

Q&A •DACEMOOREONHOWHERWEBSITESAVEDHERLABELThis season, Vancouver designer Dace Moore celebrates 10 years since the launch ofher womenswear label Dace. Moore, 38, talked to Nathalie Atkinson about her decade.First collection I did it at home on the weekends and after work, just seven sample piecesfor spring 2001. I lucked out in that I met a manufacturer while I was working for [myday job] the skateboard company who would do a small production for me. We had toguess numbers. Our very first season we did consignment. From here I remembermeetingwith a bigger companywho told us to tell people that weweren’t Canadian,that the line was from somewhere else because no one would take it seriously.That’s changed. Now people are proud to say it’s made in Canada. Loom forimprovement I do a lot of my own sample sewing, still, and at that time mysewing skills were so different from what they are now. It makes me laugh

to think of it. How it’s made Our knits for the last two seasons have been made in Italy,but everything else is made in Vancouver — the four different manufacturing companiesthat we use are all good at different things. Recession-proof clicks Luckily we launchedour online store just when the recession happened, in fall 2008 when all the stores in the

U.S cancelled. We had all our cashmere jackets and really expensive merchandise butnobody could pay, everyone cancelled! Over time we got rid of the stock online — I

don’t even know if we would have made it if we hadn’t had the site. Now it’sabout 15%-20% of our sales. Free advice I would definitely start small.

Even in year two, we were making mistakes with production, but whenyou’re at that smaller level, it doesn’t affect youmuch as if youwent full-force and had all kinds of stock.Weekend Post

BY STEPHEN BALDWIN

T he experience began inmy ears. They playedthe exact sort of Euro-industrial electronic music (re-peating words like chiffon andj’adore) that you’d expect atthis sort of event. This is not tosay it was a bad thing, becausethat stuff is catchy as hell.

The room was high andwide, with gigantic LUCIANMATIS letters along the back,studded with light bulbs.Hundreds of seats rest in aV formation. The Design Ex-change is the postmodernreconstruction of what wasonce the Toronto Stock Ex-change, and I wonder whatthemasters of yesterday’s uni-verse would say to this scene.Well, first they’d say, “Wholet all these women in here?”and when they realized howattractive most of the womenare, they’d take off their hatsand say, “Well this ... this isnot what this is place is for.Men used to be bought andsold here, and now all I seeare a bunch of fancy boys!”

Fancy boys? Well, maybe,but these fancy boys dresswell. All of them. And this istheir world in some ways, butnot really, because this is awoman’s world. These are themasters of Toronto’s fashionuniverse, and they know it. AsI had stereotypically antici-pated, they all seem to knoweach other, too. They lock eyesfrom opposite ends of theroom like two inside traders.The photographers pickedthem out effortlessly, as well.

Now, my fashion experienceis limited. I’ve spent some timestudying the sartorial aspectsofmost significant historical so-cial movements, learned someabout the artistry of fashion,dated a fashion student and,more importantly, I’ve seen —and enjoyed — both Zoolander

andTheDevilWearsPrada.Sowhen IheardMatis’ show

had a chaos and destructiontheme, I immediately thought,“Derlicte!” But I gave the youngman, a Project Runway Can-ada runner-up, a chance.

I actually didn’t get thechaos theme at all, and whatI really noticed was much theopposite. With my limitedknowledge of fashion, I foundthe clothes were stunning (aword that I thought had beenremoved from my vocabularyyears ago). They glimmered inthe spotlight, and with everycamera’s flash. Someone toldme that the show was remin-iscent of Rocco Barocco, and Iagreed, of course. “I wanted touse a lot of mixed materials,”Matis said backstage, “withthe knits and the wools, andall of these luxurious materi-als, the silks, and make themcohesive.”

To be quite honest, I misseda lot of what he said tome afterthis. I had heard that one of hisinspirationswasMichelangelo,and Iwas trying to see if hewasthe true artist that he claimedto be. “I want to do more of astatement withmy fashion,” hetold me. “More than just fash-ion.” It’s a judgment call thatI’m not equipped to make. Hisnext show’s theme, he says, willbewind.

Here and there I sawstrange sights, as expected.There were knit dresses thatappeared to have pine conesdangling off, inflated shorts inthe medieval fashion (I’m toldthey’re called trunk hose),pointed shoulder dresses likeat a Star Trek semi-formal.This extraterrestrial themewas what spoke to me. Themodels were drawn into thespotlight like alien hosts, andemerged from it void of emo-tion (this is nothing new, Isuppose). Their hairdos werepuffed out and static, with

loose strands trailing. Andtheir legs were so long andslim! But those narrow stemspounded enormous heels intothe wood floor as they walkedby. (The most amplified con-trast that I noticed all nightwas Monika Schnarre and herhusband sitting next to Matis’modest, proud parents.)

But beyond the odd fashionrituals, the endless schmooz-ing and constant casual alco-hol consumption — after theshow there was only beer leftto serve, which was fine withme — was a seamless combin-ation of visual art, music anddrama.

Yes, the drama. The at-tendees embrace each otheras old friends, but are theyreally? It’s an extremely intro-verted environment; maybebecause many use their out-fits as an outward reflection.There’s nothing wrong withthat, of course, until it gets tothe point of skin being pulled,lifted and filled with Botox orsilicone, not in the name offashion, but in the name oflooking better than as manyothers as possible.

The show ended quickerthan expected. (It initiallyblew my mind that it wasscheduled from six to nine.“Would models be walkingdown the runway for threehours? How would there beenough clothes?” I wondered.But I realize now the empha-sis placed on the event’s so-cial aspect.) Backstage, someof the models cracked smiles,dropped down from their gi-gantic heels and transformedinto real girls. Girls I say, be-cause most of them lookedtoo young to be consideredwomen. One walked out in agrey Snoopy T-shirt with aninnocent smile. Her face stiff-ened when she went out intothe crowd.

Weekend Post

‘And their legswere so long…’

KYRIAKOS / KYRIAKOSPHOTOGRAPHY.COM

A fashion neophyte is dazzled and abit disoriented at his first big show

Eva Friededistills thetrends of theseason.

BRIGHTS

In one of thosemiracles of groupthink, sparkedno doubt by therecession andconsequent of-ferings at thefabric fairs, enmasse, they em-braced brights,often in blocksof colour. Guccioffered tripletreats of emer-ald, rust and pur-ple; at Jil Sander,coral, fuchsiaand orange werecousins, and MaxMara, betterknown for beige,went for head-to-toe brights.

GOING LONG

The rule of miniseems to havebroken, with midiskirts and maxidresses gainingground.

CHASINGLACE

Lace is having amoment, espe-cially at Dolce &Gabbana, RalphLauren andErdem, often inwhite for trueromance, but thelace embracealso comesin black andpastels.

IN BLOOM

Florals, a spring-time rite, leadthe print packwith stylizedbouquets atNadya Toto,Cacharel andDries Van Noten.

AND THESTANDBYS

The classics arefeeling fresh:the white shirt,the trench, anda wider, easierpant — althoughin some collec-tions, they bal-loon to extremes.Silhouettes arecleaned up,with minimalistshapes on themarch.Postmedia News

SAMPLINGS