Exit 29. A Carefully Curated Designer Consignment Experience. (Or: What I've Been Living and Breathing for the Last Few Months)

I haven't been to one fashion show, this year, and I'm beyond okay with that. I do miss it from time to time but my pieces on those aren't what seem to interest to you and that's probably because, after attending more than twenty shows last year, I lost interest in it, too. A few have stood out and I will be returning to those this year but, aside from the shows that are part of a philanthropic endeavor, most of the memories they have created now blend into one big, redundant recollection. We're always at least two seasons behind and, keeping abreast on what's happening outside of the Montreal bubble tends to leave me hungry for more, here. The 2014 shows that now stand out in my my mind are Astri Prugger, Melissa Nepton, Ogilvy's fundraiser show for l'Hopital Sainte-Justine, the Montreal SPCA's benefit show and, of course, Le Défilé Logis Rose-Virginie which, in addition to having been executed perfectly, made my heart swell and my eyes tear up and triggered within me an idea on how I could give back.

In the fall of 2013, I decided that Canada needed an online designer consignment shop that accepts sellers from the around the world. Many brick-and-mortar shops have their own sites and a few local e-stores have popped up over the last few years but I felt it was time someone upped the ante, in Canada. Around this time, FASHION Magazine wrote an article about how you could turn your closet into cash and, in that piece, informed readers about a series of online designer consignment stores... None of whom accept Canadian sellers. I wrote to them and my letter was published but they helped fuel the fire.

My first steps were shaky ones and I ended up putting the project on the back burner ( from where it kept nagging at me) for several months. Life was happening, as it tends to. I moved out of my sub-standard apartment into one with a basement and a studio; I went to Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, NYC and Cape Cod; and then, last October, the catalyst I had evidently required kicked me in the ass. After pushing to go from being a temporary employee to a full-time one so that I could enjoy the same benefits as my colleagues, the position was opened to the outside and my company hired somebody else. I was angry and hurt but it wasn't long before those morphed into motivation and I decided that I would never waste another year of my life minutes sitting behind a desk, in a glass tower downtown, working for a company who couldn't care less about me. Everybody has bills to pay but that's not a life. The fire was back.

I reached out to a darling friend of mine, Annie Stephens, who is an amazing photographer and knows her way around web graphics and we started talking about how we could approach the project. At point, remembering that I work better under pressure, I pulled dates out of my sleeve. "Annie, what would you say to us going live in March and launching in June?" We both, quite nervously, decided to plunge.

So, it's the end of March and we've been online since the 1st. We launch in a month. And here we are. 

The last few months have been a whirlwind but we're on schedule and very excited about our launch!

Behind the scenes, at our first editorial shoot, in Old Montreal, this month. Ava is modelling and that is Annie Stephens, behind the lens. Styling was done by me.

It's at the aforementioned Défilé Logis Rose Virginie that I decided that I could use my business to raise money and give back. We've now reached out to more than 25 charities and several have decided to partner up with us. You can see them here and you can donate to them simply by listing with us and letting us know how much you'd like to give and to whom. 

We've thrown in a bunch of really great bonuses for the first people who list with us and you can see it all on the site and on our social media pages: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

This endeavor has obviously been very time-consuming, but I am writing a little bit each day. Sometimes I journal, sometimes I work on short stories. I am feeling the pull to return to blogging but I need to figure out how I want to go about it. My opinion pieces and style guides have been the most enjoyable to write and have been the most well-received by you so maybe that's what I'll move forward with. In the meantime, I just had to share this with you!

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Roots. Part Seven: riff-raff clothing co. And My First Swimsuit Shoot 2008-2010.

Until last year, the first half of 2008 was the happiest I'd ever been since the year we first moved away from Montreal, when I was a child. I was head over heels in love with a local psychobilly musician, we had just moved into the flat I still lived in today, we were engaged to be married and, aside from some of his skeletons occasionally rearing one of their ugly, hollow heads, life was great. After years of botched relationships and general hardship, I'm not sure I even knew what to do with that much happiness and had a hard time staying away from the self-destruct button. We both struggled with that (the string of relationships he'd had were messes, to say the least) and, by Christmas, we had hit a few major, personal bumps in the road but we continued to plow through, devoted to each other and to a stable future together. I designed from time to time but spent most of my time doing my best to support him and stand by him while he dealt with the issues he had severing himself from the band he'd been with for eight years, The Gutter Demons and trying to launch the new, electro-rock band he'd formed a while back but had now decided to dedicate himself to... not to mention his as-of-yet untreated bi-polar disorder, the psychotic breaks he'd have when he did touch alcohol, the shakes he got when he went through withdrawal and all kinds of other rather interesting goings-on. 

On the way back from a trip to Ottawa:

When juggling all of that, my two children, and my own insecurities stemming from dating someone whom hundreds of women around the world wanted to throw their panties at became second nature, I finally settled down and started thinking about what I wanted to do next. I wanted to design but still didn't think I had what it took to dip a toe in mainstream fashion waters and so I began to focus on the subcultures that were of interest to me at the time and had been for a few years. 

I set up an etsy shop called Great Expectations, after the Dickens' novel, and started selling vintage clothing and jewelry while i ordered t-shirts from wherever I could get them and began reconstructing them into dresses, halter tops, skirts, tube tops, etc. I did fairly well for myself with this but not enough to quit my day job just yet. After years of shying away from it, I started to sketch again and I think it really helped me to keep it together as best as I could as shit hit the fan.

Some of the reconstructed tees I sold during that time:

I also made accessories from time to time:

Luckily, I had a wonderful friend to talk to. After meeting through mutual friends, we had decided to work together, seeing as she is a (super talented) photographer. Our professional relationship was made all the more interesting by the fact that we became fast friends. From the get-go, Annie was always welcome to offer her input on my designs and on styling and I always felt comfortable enough to speak my mind whenever it came to the actual photos she would take. It was great because I'd call her up, freaking out about the boy and our conversation would just slip into the realm of design and art and photography and it kept me focused and motivated. She kept me sane throughout this period.

This was taken in December, 2009:

By the fall of 2009, both of our mothers were diagnosed with cancer. Not long after, he took to drinking again, lying about it and staying out all night, coming home at six in the morning, with puke on his coat, bloodshot eyes and a wicked stench cloud hovering over him. Everything just fell apart and the more I tried to talk to him about it and try to help, the more he closed up for long periods and then lashed out for brief, agonizing moments. I was completely co-dependent and just rode the roller coaster, trying to hang on for dear life. Recreating a pattern he had gone through so many times before, he changed his hair, his clothing, his friends, the music he listened to and basically, in front of my eyes and alongside the life we were living together, he constructed a new life for himself and, when it was elaborate enough to keep feeding whatever delusions he needed to keep alive, he announced, in a drunken stupor no less, that he would be moving out. That was April 2010. 

This was taken about a week before:

A part of me was crushed but another part of me, one I had yet to really discover until last year, was extremely relieved. The night he left, Annie called me and asked me how I felt. When I told her I was sad, she immediately started to comfort me but I interjected, "No, Annie. I'm not sad because he's gone. I'm sad because I so incredibly relieved at the fact that my front door is closed and locked and will stay that way until I unlock it and open it again." I wouldn't  have to wait for hours and cringe when I heard the repeated scratching of a key being drunkenly aimed at the lock for a few minutes, wondering what kind of mood he'd be in when he finally tripped through the door. 

My riff-raff clothing co. tags right after I got them in the mail:

A few weeks before the last shoe dropped, I had hired a pattern maker who would also act as sample maker for a few months, to assemble some swimsuit designs I had been working on. I had come up with the name riff-raff clothing co. and had a fairly good idea of where i wanted to head with it. As luck would have it, buddy announced that he was leaving the day after my first riff-raff shoot so you can imagine how hard it was to focus on the tasks at hand. but i did and we got through it.

The night before the shoot, I cabbed across town to meet my pattern maker and seamstress, a slightly neurotic woman named Suzanne. Always check your goods before paying for them. I know this sounds simple but it can be so easy to trust people at times. I went out for drinks with a friend afterward, opened the duffle bag the suits were in, had a quick look, gasped, shut the bag again and concentrated on drinking and crying on my chum's shoulder.

The next morning I took the time to really investigate the suits. What a horrific mess. We're talking crooked seams galore, some fabric not even sewn to other fabric, where it should have been, crotches and gussets that looked like they had been made for a toddler's vagina to fit in and not a grown woman's. And I had paid a few hundred dollars for the patterns and samples. Constant adjustments, double-sided tape and tricky poses were required to keep everything looking good enough for the camera. Luckily I worked with women who were good at camouflaging and didn't judge me for my sub-contractor's shitty work. 

Here is the lovely Annie Stephens at work on the shoot. We had looked around for a location for weeks and finally found exactly what we'd been looking for in an industrial area, just a few blocks away from my apartment.

Aside from one of my models showing up excessively late with greasy hair and an attitude to match, the shoot went really well. (At one point said model inquired about who I was going through a break-up with and when I told her, her response was "Oh! I had been wondering what happened to that guy! So he's single now, huh?" I didn't really talk to her after that point, unless i had to, and when i told the boy, he lovingly told me that had anyone of his acquaintances said that, they would have gone through our tv head-first.)

Some of the photos from the shoot:

The first model, Billie Prudence, was an absolute joy to work with. She did, at times, make Annie and I wonder if we should have drafted up waivers for the models to sign, especially when she climbed up a rickety metal staircase in stilettos and began to pose on a narrow ledge, twenty feet above the pavement! This is why we loved working with her, though; this was our first shoot and the first person to be shot within it and Billie really made it easy for us, not needing any direction whatsoever.

Check out the aforementioned staircase and ledge:

The swimsuits attracted a lot of attention but nothing sold right away. I hired someone else to help with fixing the patterns and, after saying that she'd been looking for swimsuit design ideas, she disappeared with my green leopard print fabric and one of my patterns. After that I focused on reconstructing tees some more and took a breath while I tried to figure out what to do with my life, now that it had changed so drastically. I knew I wanted to move forward with riff-raff clothing co. but I also knew I wanted more. I just had to figure out what that was... 




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addendum: the swimsuits seen here will be once more be available for purchase as of autumn 2013.

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