Our Montreal girl shows us how to mix pragmatism, street fashion and the high street
There’s nothing that Montrealers love more than their city. These streets are their playground. They navigate the city on foot, bike, or metro, and their clothing reflects this grounded approach to getting around.
Ripped, worn and torn from navigating cobblestones, alley ways and vertical spiral staircases, Montreal’s aesthetic packs considerable street cred.
It’s this exposure that makes street style so unique and creative to begin with. After all, “Urban living inspires creative dressing by squeezing masses of people with totally different lives into the same streets.”*
Even when high fashion calls and practicality is thrown out the window, one can see traces of function and street style intertwined with contemporary opulence and sophistication.
Take for instance a zipper, composed of a million metal teeth which lock together holding whatever they touch sound and secure. Break this object down and what we get are scraps of teeth and little strips of fabric, fairly unimaginative and altogether useless in formulating an avant-garde ensemble.
Denis Gagnon
Or is it?
Enter Denis Gagnon, Montreal fashion designer, former Casablanca pattern instructor, and museum exhibitor extraordinaire.
Gagnon’s decade of designs will be featured at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art exhibit Denis Gagnon Shows All, showcasing a plethora of zippers from now until February 2011.
This trademark design object has come to symbolize Gagnon’s style: the designer has built entire collections around its iconicity, incorporating it into designs for Aldo and Bedo, Canadian fashion retailers. Quite interesting considering the circumstances that led to Gagnon’s appreciation for the underrated design object: a surplus of zippers just lying about, ready for experimentation.
Denis Gagnon
A zipper’s rough metallic texture gives a sterile, almost rigid feeling. At the same time, this assemblage of teeth brings to mind a certain rawness. If we think of their function and purpose (chewing, biting, baring them in anger) our minds conjure up feelings of survival and basic human nature. On a symbolic level, these tools connect us to the essentials of life aiding in nourishment, speech, etc. This primal feeling not only represents a rawness and purity, it evokes a certain passionate, even aggressive vibe.
Much like studs, spikes and safety pins - elements of punk style - the zipper is an object that makes its way from function to aesthetic effect by way of its everyday mundaneness. An anti-fashion statement, it symbolizes a rejection of super frivolous values and excess by taking the most normal, common and prosaic thing and turning it into high fashion.
So what’s all this worth in the grand scheme of Montreal style? Symbolizing functionality (tres important for Montrealers) and perhaps the trademark for the city’s most enviable designer, this zipper tells us even more about Montreal’s undeniable rebelliousness, which completely characterizes its fashion scene.
Shoes on Rad Hourani's Spring 2010 runway
Need more proof? Just ask Philippe Dubuc, another of Montreal’s highly decorated design veterans who calls his city “The rebel of the Americas”. Or have a look at Montreal native Rad Hourani. His collection Rad by Rad Hourani, shown in New York, features the same hard-hitting, street flavour featuring second-skins, sharp cuts and what else? Zippers.
Regardless of age or experience, there’s a rawness to Montreal style that can’t be compared. It’s authentically rich and sincere, reflecting the unique identity of its people and their full engagement to living within their beloved city.
Dripping in zippers with Sebastien Roy
*Brooks, Amanda. (2009). I love your style: How to define and refine your personal style. HarperCollins, New York: pg. 173.
* Front image collage of Sebastien Roy collection
More on Denis Gagnon
http://modemontreal.tv/en/videos/apparition
More on Phillippe Dubuc
More on Rad Hourani
