By Patty Mintz
Kim Munson and Anna Gilkerson are among a rising tide of young Canadian fashion designers.
Based in Mahone Bay, Gilkerson's eco-friendly fashions label - deux fm apparel – features original designs made from organic or recycled and reclaimed fabrics. It's "chic clothing for the thinkers out there," says Gilkerson, who graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City with a degree in fashion design after a year at the Polimoda Institute of Design in Florence, Italy.
Her 2008 spring collection, launched in March, sprung from "a whole new wave of environmentalism that is so strong it’s pushing up through old ways of industry." The designer chose colours such as dark grey and pale sea green along with jolts of jewel tones and soft muted purples, colours she considers reminiscent of "grass growing through pavement."
In Halifax, Kim Munson's obsession for old T-shirts led her to launch Orphanage Clothing, for which she deconstructs ordinary T-shirts she finds anywhere from thrift stores and yard sales to truck stops and remakes them into new tops for women and men. The designer also creates ladies' dresses from trench coats, and jackets from jeans.
"I love the fact something old can be remade into a completely new garment," she says.
From an outsider's point of view, it's a pretty cool way to make a living. Both designers agree their work as emerging eco-clothing makers is exciting and rewarding.
Know and care about the issues
"More and more new eco-boutiques are popping up," says Gilkerson, who was born and raised in Nova Scotia.
"I love dealing with these stores the most because the owners/buyers really understand what I'm doing and why. They know and care about the issues with sweatshop manufacturing. The more eco-boutiques and eco-buyers, the more aware and support there is to this movement."
One thing Gilkerson says she has learned through her work is "the huge influence of super-trendy unsustainable, cheap throwaway clothing," and how much people are willing to pay for sustainable designs such as hers.
Born in New Brunswick, Munson studied fashion design at the International Academy of Design and Technology. She returned to Halifax, where her label thrives.
"I love it here. A lot of my design sensibility comes from living in Nova Scotia, and Nova Scotia is getting name for itself for artistic talent coming out of the East Coast."
Elevating new designers
Retailers Michelle Kulyk and Jocelyn Hatt of Hatt En Kul, which features environmentally and socially conscious products and clothing, supports smaller local designers like Munson, Gilkerson and Angela Melanson, who lives on the outskirts of Wolfville.
Like the 'buy local' movement for food, Kulyk sees similar support for Canadian-made clothing.
"For us, it's important to elevate the stuff – like Kim Munson's – that's reconstructed." For one thing, Kulyk says, "it's stopping the tide of the throwaway."
At Hatt En Kul on Main Street, Wolfville, "we're getting really good feedback,” says Kulyk. “We want to open a second location in the city. We know it's the wave of the future and I want to be the first one in Halifax."
Angela Melanson, who works from her home on Melanson Mountain near Wolfville, says she's happy to see "more and more small-scale designers choosing to create their collections based on the recrafting of things already in existence.”
Her fashion line currently includes one-of-a-kind handbags and wristlets made from recycled wool, but she is also in the experimental phase of an eco-friendly clothing line to complement her label, LaLa & Gleen.
Melanson, who studied fashion arts, textiles, costume-making and worked for 11 years in the costume departments of various theatres, says small, independently-owned shops like Hatt En Kul "give designers, emerging artists and crafters an opportunity to showcase these limited edition items and to play their part in a world in which global warming and fair trade practices are very much a reality."
Not all wine and roses
But as the women have learned, it's not all wine and roses.
For Munson, one stumbling block is finding enough fabrics that are worn and used, but still have some life.
"I spend a lot of time sourcing material, about a third of my time," says Munson, who does all her own design work, pattern-drafting, sample-making, fabric sourcing and sewing.
In Gilkerson's case, a shortage of skilled sewers and the required facilities to employ them forced her to look as far as B.C.
"But what I realized is I was spending a lot of money on shipping and creating more carbon footprints, so slowly I have brought some stuff back to (be made in) Nova Scotia," by contract sewers.
Kulyk says the opportunities would be greater if the government took notice of what has happened to the garment industry as a whole.
"Quotas were lifted to bring more lower end mass-market clothing products to Canada. It completely decimated the Canadian clothing industry. Cut and sew operations in Ontario and Quebec had problems keeping their doors open."
On the other hand, the situation helped create a niche for small-scale Canadian designers.
"There’s a small segment of the population that's supporting (locally-made eco-fashions) now because the market has been flooded with cheap offshore goods," says Kulyk, a manufacturing specialist who studied fashion and knitwear design at Ryerson University in Toronto. "I discovered I was more proficient at the technical end of designing; the very hands-on making of the clothes," she says.
"If young designers see there's a market, we'll see more training programs and a re-emergence of skilled labour because government may see there's an opportunity for employment here. There are people like me who have the background and I know the equipment's here, just not in functioning factories."
She says Nova Scotia could support a revitalized garment industry if the opportunity was recognized and an effort was made.
“I would love nothing more than to see Canada, including Nova Scotia, develop this industry,” says Gilkerson. “It’s innovative, it would create jobs and keep young entrepreneurs and skilled labourers here.”
Contact info:
lalaandgleen.com
www.orphanageclothing.com
www.deuxfm.com
