Challenges At Hand
Finally reading some quality reporting, La Presse has gotten a rare treat of interviewing the business side of the Montreal designer, Andy The-Anh about the future of expanding his business.
Surprisingly, 60% of The-Anh’s sales come from the United States, that’s a high number considering he makes his homebase in Canada. “10% is sold in Greece and the Middle East, the rest is sold in Canada,” wrote Stephane Champagne of La Presse. A shame they couldn’t put exact figures for Canada. But like many other designers across the globe, his brand was not immune to the 2008 recession, where sales fell dramatically that year and had pushed the company to restructure their approach in the international market.
To put his brand into consumers’ perspective (and mine), Andy The-Anh doesn’t aim to be the next Gucci or Prada, or face competition in Milan or Paris, as those brands dwarf his company’s finances in comparison. Instead, he offers his brand as a nice alternative to those mega brands, and hopes to open a second store in Toronto for the time being.
The reason I loved this article is that it is so rare to read about the financial status of Montreal designers, as I’ve previously posted before, some great talents vanish under the radar without so much of a whisper. Then one has to realize or ask themselves “Hey whatever happened to such and such?”
Meanwhile
A recent interview with Denis Gagnon was published on the Montreal Fashion Week website asking the designer why he had stopped creating a line for men. “Ah, it’s the market here, it’s very tight[...] we have to be a big brand. With men it’s a completely different playing field,” he explained. Even someone as talented as Gagnon admits that some things that even he cannot possibly conquer in the market. Thus it was in early 2007, amid growing debt and no public or private investor in sight, the designer was forced to close his boutique on St-Laurent, cease the release of making entire collections, and recoiled in contenting with different collaborations and private clients to fuel his designing needs.
Gagnon has since rebounded back into the spotlight in fall 2008, and has continually produced collections with critical acclaim. He now sells his garment through his own atelier boutique.
Montreal Designers…who?
Despite efforts to promote awareness of Montreal fashion designers, a recent survey reported by Eva Friede at The Gazette, said that of the 600 polled, the majority were “woefully unaware” of who and where local Montreal designers are found. Marie Saint Pierre came out on top of the list with a mere 12%, while Philippe Dubuc was not far behind with 11%, according to Diane Duhamel, fashion commissioner of Montreal.
And here’s the kicker that Friede asks on her blog: “Now, how many of us know there’s a fashion commissioner?”
She brings a very good point. And why is it that despite such a huge media venture to promote Montreal Fashion Week, costing about $1 million to produce this year, are people still unaware? MFW has been around since 2001, and to the admittance of Chantal Durivage, co-president of MFW, Montreal is not at the forefront of fashion weeks like Paris or Milan, but “on par with Barcelona and Berlin“.
Now that’s a surprising statement for me because I was under the impression that the verbiage MFW used to promote itself came off as trying to dig its way to be like Paris, Milan, London or New York. And you can’t really blame me, with words like “leading design in the fashion world” in their current press release makes me think primo numero uno on the fashion echelon. But I guess that’s like every radio station saying it is THE number one station in Montreal. So I’ll let that slide.
If they’re on par with smaller cities like Barcelona and Berlin, ok, I can take that. And perhaps, I should just lower my expectations next time around.
Image credits: Stephane Champagne, MFW, Jimmy Hamelin
Cover image: Left - Muse by Christian Chenail, Dinh Ba Design, Envers by Yves Jean Lacasse
Montreal Fashion Week SS2010 - Day 1
It’s been a grueling 5 hour trip around Marche Bonsecours. Day 1 is finally over and I just want to thank my lucky stars I’m still standing. I apologize for the lack of blogging through the entire day, apparently Marche Bonsecours isn’t particularly equipped to handle bloggers despite my best efforts in finding a good network signal. So for the rest of the week, I can only give a summary of what I’ve seen at Montreal Fashion Week. I will invest in an iPhone in the immediate future, mark my words.
I wish I had better things to say about Montreal Fashion Week, only because I keep hoping that something good will be in store every time I go there. But I am always left disappointed, bored, and unimpressed. It’s true, I’ll be blunt. It takes a lot of guts to put on a show, hire models, rent the space and produce a collection supposedly worthy of a buyer’s time and media’s coverage. But, so many of these designers have shown subpar collections, year after year. Clearly they don’t influence current trends at all, and honestly I have barely noticed any of the local big buyers at Ogilvy or Holt Renfrew stocking these long-time fashion designers on their racks, except save Marie Saint Pierre (who is not showing this season, for unknown reasons). Yet are generously covered in the media year after year, with no sense of criticism whatsover. Other designers are supported locally with their own money racked up by sales from their boutiques across the city, and a few across the country. I’m not seeing the cream of the crop here, people. Where are they?
I think the biggest letdown was the show of the Createurs Francais, a showcase of Who’s Next coming all the way from France. I have high respect for the French, after all, haute couture and fashion today would not be possible were it not from French innovation into fashion. But I was sorely disappointed to what was on the runway. Creativity was there but was put down by poor choice of fabrics, prints that made me think of bed sheets and curtains, and missing refinement. Only one of the creators stood out, David Kurtis, with silky dresses and shining beaded straps, and a superb winged cape made of shiny vinyl-like feathers.
I was further puzzled by other fashion viewers who exclaimed “Wow, c’etait bon!” And I was wondering if they had the intention of actually buying the clothes, or did they just say those things because they were at a fashion show?
That said, one designer has consistently shown great collections for the mass consumers, with interest cuts and a couple of new fabrics here and there. That honor goes to Andy The-Anh, who had a press cocktail show instead of runway (economic recession? He’s also only restricting himself to the showroom at LG Fashion Week in Toronto). Season after season, his body-conscious designs and glamorous satins always flatter women’s body (well, ok, the models’ in this case). I don’t have much critique of his show except that first 5 models of his short collection stood on a rotating podium for 10 mins, and that was a little too long for the media to stand. The caribbean blue colors were a deja vu of his 2008 fall collection, I think he could’ve picked something better, a color that we wouldn’t expect, like apple green.
Thus concludes my take on Day 1 at MFW. I apologize for the lack of photos, I’m on the verge of being rendered unconscious from sinus/flu medication, and besides, it’s tough to take pics of models on a runway with 10 heads blocking your view. Stay tuned for more on Twitter for Day 2 tomorrow!
What is Montreal’s Sustainability Factor?
If you haven’t noticed already, the Montreal Fashion Week website has been update and spruced up for it’s Spring Summer 2010 edition. Miraculously, I’ve been given media accreditation as a fashion blogger so I’ll be attending some of the shows.
The Spring edition contains the usual suspects - Marie Saint Pierre, Denis Gagnon, Christian Chenail, etc - and a handful of newcomers to the show: Claude Bouchard, Dimitri Chris, Micalla, and Annie 50.
The highly successful Le Showroom, a sort of trunk show, will be showcasing other local designers’ collections since many are not choosing to run on the catwalk. Curiously, the CIMM is MIA in this edition, where usually the more commercial designers like Simon Chang would showcase the more wearable collections to the public. I would’ve thought they had finally made some sort of business connection with MFW, but I guess that has dissolved?
One has to wonder though how the recession has affected local Canadian fashion industries. More and more companies are outsourcing their workload to Asia, with a very select few companies who still produce in Canada (to my knowledge Tristan and Le Chateau are still hanging in there). The sole and only press conference that could possibly address this issue will be on Tuesday, Oct 15th, the inaugural opening day of Montreal Fashion Week SS10, but I’m afraid it’s nothing more talking fluff to reassure designers.
I do certainly believe that a fashion conference in Montreal is severely lacking in addressing these important business issues. And perhaps it would be to the local designers’ benefit if the industry would stop trying to brush it off by replacing it with more talks about pushing creativity, which frankly is not necessary. Think of all the past talents that have appeared and disappeared under the radar: Yso, Renata Morales, Rush Couture, Nadya Toto, Marisa Minicucci, Philippe Dubuc, and for a time Denis Gagnon. Top tier talents like Dubuc and Minicucci are struggling to keep afloat, or in Minicucci’s case, have to rethink their business strategy altogether. Montreal also has to contend with Toronto, which often has some of our best talents migrating to show such as Rudsak, Andy, Aqua di Lara, Travis Taddeo, and Morales, and our cream of the crops are showcasing in Paris or New York, like Rad Hourani and Mackage. It seems that Montreal is too small for designers who are aiming higher.
If Montreal is supposed to be so axed on promoting local talent and encouraging to buy local, they will certainly need to rethink their strategies to influence shoppers. Because the fast fashion giants down on Ste-Catherine are eating up the local industry’s sales with cheap “chic” like Forever 21, H&M, and Zara. While the talents of the likes of CIMM is totally capable of wowing us with commercial and sometimes innovative garments, yet they are nowhere to be found this season.
Like I’ve said before, Montreal has great potential as a fashion hub, but lacks the direction and support it needs to establish itself as true player among fashion capitals.
Image credits: Jimmy Hamelin, Montreal Fashion Week
Asian-American Designers On The Rise
Alexander Wang
Today’s Asian-Americans have come a long way from the stereotypes that have been bestowed upon them by past generations of asian immigrants. Those of us born and raised from a-typical asian families who value a future in the Golden Career Triad of business, medicine and law, can take it a bit easier knowing some of our peers are making a living outside of that.
According to the Wall Street Journal’s “A Design Generation Rising“, fashion design is seeing a rise of Asian newcomers, a few whom had to go through the routine of hiding their true desire until proven successful and/or bear the shame and disappointment elicited from traditional families from their career choices.
In Montreal, one of the very first blog posts I’ve made was the interesting presence of Asian designers in the city, in which designers like Andy-The Anh, Simon Chang, Siphay Southidara, and Dinh Ba have made significant splashes in the local and national fashion scene in the past decade.
The profiles of internationally known Asian photographers and stylists are still low on the radar - Tommy Ton is gaining some momentum as Photographer Du Jour…and that’s about it. As for editors, only a couple of made a splash so far: Janice Min, formerly of US Weekly, and Sojin Lee, formerly of Net-a-porter and now of Fashionair.com.
Designer Deja Vu
Peculiar behavior or in need of sales?
This season, we’re seeing a lot of double takes of designers choosing to showcase in both Montreal and Toronto’s fashion week. Designers like Andy-The Anh, Denis Gagnon, Lucian Matis, and Evan Bidell will present their collections for the second time next week at L’Oreal Fashion Week. I’ve also noticed a few designers who have jumped ships and decided to only show in Toronto, namely RUDSAK, Bodybag by Jude and Morales.
Could it be that the American buyers I had talked to last season were right? Designers are traveling to several tradeshows often showing the same collection again and again, in desperate need of buyers. Yet showcasing in a coveted Fashion Week is expensive, let alone two. Given that Denis Gagnon has been plagued with financial troubles in the past, I wonder how he was able to bounce back to two Fashion Weeks this season.
What does that say of the state of the Canadian fashion retail business? Are Canadian cities not doing enough to stimulate local sales? That in turn, it is forcing local designers to seek their fortunes elsewhere? New York Fashion Week, the circus that is has become, also generated a lot of concern this season by nearly squeezing London Fashion Week out of the calendar next Fall, and the city has become a viable target for talented emerging London designers. It would seem that Montreal, like London, is unable to keep its designers at home as they’re vying for the bigger fashion weeks where they know the media and buyers will be abundant.
