Week-End Roundup (Or: A Makeover, A Silent Flick, Jamaican Proverbs and Not One But Two Dairy Queen Ice Cream Cakes in My Freezer)

Last week-end, I took a much needed break away from my clothing line and had a fantastic time.

Friday night was the second night of Terrasse St-Ambroise's Oktoberfest. My son and I headed there for a wee bit so I could drink a surprisingly huge mug of beer (I'm not sure what I was expecting, given that it was Oktoberfest but that shit got heavier and heavier as time went on, despite me working diligently at draining its contents). My son was studying for his high school entrance exams, with ear buds in, until this really loud Bavarian band hit the stage and started jamming.

On Saturday I met up with a fantastically talented and inspiring friend who has scored a two-month singing contract in Morocco. Before heading out, she wanted to undergo a make-over and add to the stage clothing she already owned and so she hired me as an image/fashion consultant. After having hit up my favourite thrift store and having her hair colour changed, this week-end was our second and final shopping trip before she zipped out of here and I had a lot of fun! After hitting up the shoe and underwear departments of The Bay, Lolo sat down to have her make-up done by Simon at the MAC counter and to receive a tutorial on how to recreate the look at herself. She looked smoking and, from certain angles, she really reminded me of Juliette Lewis. I had my face done by Simon years ago and I would definitely go back to see him, whether for clients or for myself.

A great haul!

I wish we could have hung out more but Lo has some socks to knock right the hell off in Casablanca, where she went the next day!

Saturday evening, the kids and I headed to Westmount where we saw The Phantom of the Opera presented with live music. It was fantastic!

My daughter rocking some H & M and Forever 21, at the bus stop.

We started with a screening of The Red Spectre (1907).

While a member of the Cineclub changed reels before the masked ball scene, in walked The Phantom.

Sunday the kids and I went shopping and our day looked something like this:

Last day of the season for Dairy Queen apparently means mad sales.

Once in a while, I miss Jamaica so I gravitate to one particular shelf at the super market. This time, we picked up sodas and jerk sauce.

"Puss and dwag no ha de same luck."

photo cred: Thanks to my chum Ben Kalman for the photos of The Phantom.

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Musings (Or: I'm leaving Montreal In a Handful of Years And I Don't Yet Know Where I'm Going)

I've always been a nomad at heart and, when I moved back to my hometown in 2000, I never imagined that I would still be here in 2013. I had planned on staying here long enough to have Ava and figure out what my next move would be. I thought about maybe working for Club Med for a while so that Ava could learn how to swim in the ocean and pick up different languages from the other kids passing through. Then I had my darling son and I haven't been able to move anywhere else since. 

I've always known that, ideally, I want to have a pied-à-terre in a city and a house in the woods. Next year, I'll be moving into a duplex that I will buy after two years, so I will have a home in Montréal, no matter where I go and it will also serve as a nest egg for my kids. I used to want to buy land an hour or so NW of here but now I'm eyeing the coast of New Brunswick because the most amazing thing for me would be to be able to sit up in bed in the morning and see the ocean. 

Last fall I decided I want to leave Montreal as soon as my son is either done high school or wants to leave with me, beforehand. Living in a town you know want to leave is interesting. I am committed to exploring every last nook and cranny of this place on the one hand and, on the other, I'm already disconnected from so much of what I used to think was important here. I've let several people go from my life and I'm sure I'm not quite finished with that process.

I'll miss my mom and a couple of friends but, overall, I'm excited! I intend to spend the next few years making myself as employable as possible so that I can work in fashion and/or media or, in an ideal world, so that I can write and design from wherever I am and not be tied down to any one office (unless it's for my own line!). 

Four to six years will go by quickly and so I'm already working on so much! To come: The new etsy shop will be up and running in April, I'll be making a few more announcements with regards to band merch, also in April; I have begun to look for someone who can work part-time and help with pattern making and sewing because I've designed new pieces for riff-raff and for another label, which will be revealed in the fall, and I've begun writing fiction again. I'm also working toward a certificate in photography as I have no doubt that that will help me along the way. Amazing times ahead!

I wonder where I'll end up...

My current facebook profile picture. Photo taken by me. Unedited. 

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Roots. Part Ten: Boutique Pandemonium (And Why I've Changed My Mind). 2012.

I began 2012 in NYC with two of my friends. There was friction with one friend and we haven't hung out much since, even if we were pretty much best friends prior to heading down there and the other friend and I just went back there together. All in all, it was a fun trip. I felt strong, confidant and optimistic about the future. It was a fantastic way to start the new year.

A few months prior to this, I had decided to take the plunge and open a store in Montreal. I chose the name Pandemonium and planned on selling art, clothing, fashion accessories, home decor and paper products that were aimed at mods, skinheads, punks, psychobillies, goths, etc. I am privileged to know a multitude of insanely talented people in Montreal and the idea of displaying and selling their work and throwing in some of mine thrilled me to bits. I had taken a bunch of notes but the trip to NYC was what I had needed to push forward and actually sit down to write a business plan. The most important thing for me was that 75% of the goods sold in the shop be local.

In April, I flew to Jamaica with one of my best friends and her mother. We spent a week in Ocho Rios and this girl, as usual, was amazing to hang with and just bouncing ideas off of her made me see what I wanted to do even more clearly. 

Our resort:

One of my best chums and one of my favourite three people to travel with, Amanda:

Every time I leave town, my head is cleared, I find introspection and inspiration and I come back ready to attack. My trip to Jamaica was no different. I came back and started sketching again. I also started looking up locations for the shop and planned on opening summer 2013 in order to give myself time to make it perfect. I found all sorts of grant possibilities and started to talking to people with experience in this. 

In May my contract ended and I found myself without work. I actually didn't mind it too much, as I was able to get employment insurance and I worked a few temp gigs to compensate. That summer, my daughter and I were invited to Prince Edward County, Ontario, where we, along with her grandmother and her grandmother's best friend, got to eat at lovely waterside cider houses and rustic restaurants; body board on some pretty nice waves on Lake Ontario, visit art galleries and antique stores and enjoy activities such as napping in a hammock (if you've never done this, you should). I got to talking with my daughter's grandmother and we decided that I could use some mentoring. We agreed to meet in the fall and talk about my life and where it's headed.

My daughter at North Beach, in Prince Edward County:

Here I am at Dead People's Stuff, an antique store in the County:

I was asked to meet with my mentors in September and to prepare for said encounter. I drafted up info on the store and when and where I wanted to open it, thinking that that would be the focus of the meeting. Within minutes, it was clear that I had the wrong the impression. This meeting was about me getting a full-time job and moving along with it. I bucked and tried to explain that I need to creating and building something for myself, for my future. One of my mentors has been working with artists her whole life and she understood exactly what I meant. We decided that we would split the mentoring in two so that I would get to talk about that aspect of my life in great detail and also seek advice on it. 

Something happened during that meeting, though. I was asked why I wasn't working in the fashion industry... And I didn't have an answer. I left the hotel the meeting had been held and, got home and opened a bottle of wine. I sat and thought (mostly aloud and to my daughter) for a while. Have you ever had one of those eureka moments? Everything pretty much hit me like a ton of bricks and I suddenly knew what I want. Not all of it was easy to admit to myself but I finally had the strength to suck it up and just do it. 

Here's what it comes down to: I don't want to live in Montréal for the rest of my life or even for the next ten years so setting up shop here wouldn't make sense. More importantly though, I realized that I  truly want to design. To design and to write. I will get to do neither of these things if I'm busy with inventory, managing, ordering supplies and basically working retail. 

It was hard to start telling all of the people I had talked to about this for a year that I would no longer be doing this but that's just pride. Pride gets wounded and then it bounces back and continues to get in your way. Besides, my chum Joe, who has worked at Cruella for many years, seems to have had a similar idea because he's opening a shop called Créatures this month. A sliver of my being was wounded upon learning that, as I had gone on and on about Pandemonium to all of our mutual friends and even booked Joe's band for a fundraiser I organized for the shop, but then I reminded myself that a)That's just pride again, b)I'm the one who chose to no longer do this and c)All of the people I had approached about selling in my shop may now have another opportunity to do so, in this new store instead, if they decide to sell local products, too. I have made peace with my decision and I wish Joe and Créatures all the best!

The most important thing I realized is that I don't have to bury myself in a subculture-related grave. I know who I am and I am part punk rocker, part rude girl, part psychobilly. part death rocker, part skingirl, etc. but I also fit into mainstream fashion and I no longer have to spend all of my time pretending to myself that I'm angry with it and that I hate all of it just because one of my closets is full of studs, spikes, patches, straps, zippers and vintage Fred Perry and Ben Sherman shirts. I can be each and every one of those things but also get out there and be a part of the mainstream fashion world. This sounds simple enough perhaps but the minute this dawned on me, it was like a light finally turned on in the darkness. A real "growing up" moment, if you will... I somehow never clued in to the fact that this could happen, despite people approaching me at least once a month and telling me I should be a stylist. Maybe that's what happens when you grow up as the underdog, the one everyone jeers at and deems the ugly duckling. As a teenager, you start relating to whatever angsty, morbid, underground communities you can and you delve into them and hate the mainstream, way passed the healthy point of doing so because god forbid you should actually adhere to anything that rest of society believes is stylish or good. Well, I'm done. 

I've basically divided it up into four parts and here they are:

Boutique Pandemonium

It's not because I don't want to open a shop in my town that I've abandoned the idea altogether. I will be featuring a lot of the artists whose work I wanted to include in my shop on this blog and I'm pleased to announce that Pandemonium will be opening as an etsy shop within the next few weeks! The shop will feature riff-raff clothing co. designs, and anything that I make that isn't for my new label, whether it be clothing, accessories or home decor. Added bonus? I'll be opening up my vintage vault and selling a ton of gorgeous vintage jewelry, lingerie and home decor. 

Rosemary Hosson: Fashion Designer, Blogger and Stylist

I have this blog, I've written for Cult Mtl and am looking at writing for a few more newspapaers and magazines, both online and in print. I'm stylist a photo shoot next week and working on my portfolio. 

riff-raff clothing co.

riff-raff clothing co. lives, as mentioned above. This line is now my punk rock, 'billy, glam, etc. outlet. I've just become the official womenswear designer for Batmobile, under this label, and I am also in talks with The Koffin Kats, having just purchased a selection of t-shirts from them. I'll be reconstructing those, as well as about three times as many for Batmobile. Expect dia de los muertos inspired home decor, studded clutches and peter pan collars, belts, hair accessories and a variety of clothing. These will all be sold on the new, aforementioned etsy shop, Pandemonium.

Designing for Mainstream

I'm finally doing it. I'm working on two collections that represent who I am but will also appeal to the masses. I don't want to divulge too much too soon but expect to see the first few pieces in an event's fashion show, this fall. I will also be applying for Fashion Week, for next spring. I'm not really interested in showing in Montreal, given how weak our Fashion Week tends to be (this year was appalling) but I'm honestly not sure where else I will be looking to. More to come on that later.

I enrolled in a photography class (I'm loving it!) and I intend to take one evening course per semester, for the next few years so that, when my son is done high school in six years, I am more employable than ever and can relocate to wherever a fantastic job in fashion awaits. That's if my clothing line doesn't take off. If it does, I will go wherever that leads me. 

***

And so now we're all caught up. I just got back from a four-day trip and I'm ready to rock. And now that the news on Pandemonium is out, I can move forward and shed this last layer of weight that had been holding me back. 

Onward!

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Roots. Part Nine: 2011

2011 was an interesting year. I didn't do much in the way of designing but certain important things did happen so I will briefly recap this year and do it mainly with photos.

As of January, I often drove my mother an hour north of town, where my uncle and his family lives. My maternal grandmother had been diagnosed with cancer and it was terminal so I got my mom up there as often as possible (my mother is epileptic and is therefore forbidden to drive). 

March 2011 was rough. First, my son's grandfather died of emphysema. We attended the funeral and, the same night, my daughter and I boarded a night bus to NYC. A week after we came back, the family gathered at my uncle's home and we watched my grandmother die, one day before my birthday. I was working as a relocation consultant at the time and had clients in from Texas that I had to show homes to. I remember insisting on separate cars so that I could cry alone in my car, between showings. A week after that, as I was about to head off to give a tour of Montreal to another client, my daughter suddenly went from standing to lying on the floor with her eyes rolling back into her head. It was the single most terrifying experience of my life but, after days in the hospital, the doctors found nothing (we now know it's low blood pressure).

My 2011 trip to NYC was all about discovering lower Manhattan. Here is my daughter right before we entered Greenwich Village.

That March, things hit a new low with my ex. Not only was he absent at the hospital, when my daughter was there and did he not show up at my grandmother's funeral but, after telling me he was too unwell to celebrate my birthday with my friends and I, I ran into him on St-Laurent Street, healthy-looking and happy, having just gone to a photo shoot where he posed as a mod, his new thing. I'd also been receiving drunken texts at all hours of the night and it was in the spring that it got so much worse and stayed that way for months. 

In June, I wrote to him and told him I couldn't talk to him anymore. I needed space and I begged him to back off. He agreed and, for about six weeks, there was peace. 

I did so much during that summer. I went to Ottawa a few times, took my son and my sister to Quebec City for a day, competed with the dragon boat team I'd joined and spent a week in Toronto, with my cousin. 

Old Quebec:

I also went to a few small-town festivals on the West Island and generally tried to get into the car, leave town and discover as many new places as I could. I took my daughter to see the B-52's live at the Montreal Jazz Festival and took her to a few ska shows as well. This was also the year she started Rock Camp for Girls.

Here is my super stylish kid on our way to one such show. She had just turned eleven:
(Dress: French Connection, Leggings and hat: Ardène, Boots: Doc Marten's, Sweater: Unknown)

My daughter after her rock camp show:

By Halloween, a few things ended. Firstly, my ex' mother lost her battle with cancer. He went off the deep end and, in the weeks leading up to her death and in the days after, I received countless, drunken text messages. We had started seeing each other again in August but I was much more reserved about it all, now. We saw each other at a party, where he begged me stay but didn't want to communicate and during which he was not only drunk but high as a kite and denying both, as usual. When he tried to say goodbye to me, as I got into a cab at 4 a .m., I said goodbye to our mutual friend and gave him the finger without even glancing his way. I saw him two more times, once when he came over and once at a ska show and then that was it. He sent me one last, horrible, drunken text at 3 a.m. in January of 2012, telling me that he was so happy, he wanted to have his vasectomy reversed and saying, ,"You're all alone, now. Where's your soul mate? How does it feel to know that I'm so happy and you're not?!?" Lovely, no? All traces of the man I once knew and loved are gone and I guess that made it easier for me to get over him as well as I did. 

It was also around this time that I quit working as a relocation consultant and went back to working in an office, as an admin assistant. My car had sadly died and I couldn't afford a new one, given how little I'd been paid for the last year and so I became much more sedentary.

Halloween:

I finished the year in NYC, feeling strong, confident, motivated and happy.

The next Roots post will sum up last year and bring us to where I am now. I'm really looking forward to it because, after that, I can share all of the interesting things I've been up to as of late and talk about where I'm headed! 

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