The Musee des Beaux Arts (Museum of Fine Arts) in Montreal is hosting Denis Gagnon’s new exhibition, which opened to the media Monday afternoon to not only showcase his Spring 2011 collection but also to celebrate his 10 year anniversary in the business. As everyone in the know has probably read, Denis Gagnon’s journey to the top has only been successful in the last couple of years. Despite constant rave reviews of his work, his designs were inaccessible to the general public and he was only known to fashion insiders. He had opened and closed a shop on St-Laurent and went back to the drawing board to concentrate on some new ideas. Mind you, during his better days in Montreal, social media had not really caught onto the fashion crowd and more than 3 years ago, fashion blogs in Montreal were practically non-existent.

It wasn’t until his breakthrough Spring 2010 collection with his now iconic zipper dresses that everything had snowballed him into a seemingly overnight success. It sparked new collaboration with Aldo and Bedo within a year. His Renata Morales gift of oversized Lanvin glasses are now etched onto t-shirts and illustrations (and his face). Amidst the intense attention, his much anticipated Spring 2011 collection was a follow up to this Fall 2010 collection of fringes, and signed a deal to exhibit his most recent work (not a retrospective) at the Musee des Beaux Arts from now until February 2010.

Jil Sander (left) and Alexander McQueen’s fringe work for Spring 2009

His fringe work is much more refined this time around. While his Fall 2010 collection was very much like Jil Sander’s Spring 2009 collection of solid colors, his new collection was more similar to Alexander McQueen’s version of ombre fringe in Spring 2009. Not all works are exact copies, but there are some striking similarities and also some distinguishable differences that makes Denis Gagnon’s work darker than Jil Sander and McQueen’s.

Tweeters reported that Spring 2011 was actually a foray into a resort collection, perhaps explaining why we saw some horizontal striped dresses, distressed and ripped in some areas, nonetheless draped closely to the body.

His move to have an exhibition of the museum is a smart one, not only is his new collection more commercial but passerbys may get a chance to purchase some of his pieces at Holt Renfrew when it hits next spring. Still, his designs are not easy to reproduce in great numbers and with a hefty price tag equaled to that of the great Azzedine Alaia at over $2000 a dress, will have shoppers think twice about their purchase.

While the designer still advocates that he would like to have a financial backer, expectations will be running high as long as he’s in the spotlight. With some luck, he may find the finances he needs to truly propel him into the international spotlight.

Image credit: Style.com

No one could really tell or advise you how to handle Fashion’s Night Out in New York, especially since this was only the second year and radically different from last year’s inaugural celebration.

The event certainly dwarfed any of the fashion events I attended, including the Fashion & Design Festival in Montreal. Practically the entire city of New York, visitors and residence alike were decked out in their most fashionable outfits, high heels galore and people crowding the streets to attend more than 100 locations around the city.

My first stop was to go to Jil Sander’s new bridge line “Jil Sander Navy” with special guest appearance by French illustrator Garance Doré, who had shot the campaigns for the line. The Navy line will replace the one from Uniqlo in order to cater to middle class consumers. The collection mainly consisted of near pure CMYK intensity of Magenta, Cyan, White, and Bright Orange. This season’s collection was more sporty with a few shift dresses, and sports jackets with adjustable ties. Some of the white shorts had some interesting textures, thus not your typical run of the mill pieces, it was a nice breezy collection for spring. I loved the store layout at Jil Sander, with pure white walls and floors, and featureless white mannequins, they really made the clothes pop out.

When Garance finally arrived, with her fellow fashion beau – Scott Schuman, she was totally glammed up and was much more beautiful in person than I had anticipated. I was actually expecting that cool laid back French look, but was greeted with a more sleeked back look and stunning red lips. She’s friendly, girly and still is overwhelmed by the attention she gets for her work, so I find her to be very humble. When I asked her about how she approached the shoot for the campaign, she said that because she’s a newcomer to New York (having moved there recently), she was afraid of losing that sense of “lost in the city” approach and wanted to reflect that in her photos. No doubt her photos had a Sartorialist feel to them, the difference being she would catch people in a moment rather than have them pose for the photo.

Scott Schuman was another blogger I had anticipated in meeting, but his aura exhuded professionalism, and I was a little star struck, so I didn’t quite know what to ask him. So I asked something related to Garance, like how she got into photography and he said that he gave her her first camera. That was really sweet! He discussed the busy schedule they had ahead of them and expressed their interest to travel to smaller fashion weeks in other countries, since the bigger ones are sort of a “been there done that”. I found this to be kind of particular since it seems that when you’re a nobody, you want to be the superstar, but when you’re the superstar, you want to go back to being low key. Isn’t it strange?

Overall, I was glad to meet them, but at the same time they had other people to talk to, it wasn’t quite full at Jil Sander, but it was enough to make Garance feel like she did reach out to a few at least. Good for her.

While at Jil Sander I had chatted up with Jason, a fan of Jil Sander and Garance’s work. We had a good friendly chemistry for strangers and ended up hanging out together for the rest of the evening. It was one of those serendipitous New York moments, where a stranger can make you pass the time so much faster. I followed him to Ralph Lauren, where it was the total opposite of Jil Sander, packed halfway into the open street. Vogue’s Editor at Large, Andre Leon Talley made an appearance to introduce Grammy-nominated singer, Janelle Monae (a singer I’ve never heard of). Her opening song, “Sincerely Jane” blew me away. She was referenced by Andre as the “Marlene Dietrich” of our time, with a fitted tuxedo look, a look she said she paid tribute to her parents, people who put on a uniform for a living. Her performance though brief, was electrifying and her dance moves had the crowd going wild.

The party at Chanel in Soho was blocking traffic nearly in all directions, it was virtually impossible to go in. At Reiss, supermodel Coco Rocha posed in front of an English red telephone booth they installed inside the store (Rimmel London was a co-sponsor of the event).

By 10pm I was exhausted. I had been up since 4:30am that day and had been pretty much on the go non-stop. Being in New York gives you tons of energy but at the same time drains you twice as much.