From the opening night last Monday in Jardins du MAC with Stephen Jones, covered here by Chris, to the inspiring, entertaining and very educative conferences with notable speakers, the different pop up shops, fashion shows, here are the highlights of #FMD15.
1. The opening night with models wearing Stephen Jones hats, stylish guests, exquisite ambiance in the garden of Montreal’s Museum of Contemporary art, followed by Jones’ conference.
2. The conferences and especially: Stephen Jones the international millinery who makes arts we call hats, Patricia Fields the stylist behind Sex & The City’s memorable outfits, Adam Katz Sinding the urban international photographer for VOGUE, Scooter Laforge the talented and notable designer who has worked with celebs such as Madonna and Beyonce, Jacques Nantel HEC’s marketing expert and Feriel Karoui the style trends analyst.
3. The fashion shows: Collectif, The Montreal Fashion society (ours, pics here) and Lasalle College’s Z GENERATION designers, dancers and musicians, each had different vibes from urban to young professional and futuristic.
4. The shopping at the fashion trucks and booths. We have to admit we had a major crush for My Addikt‘s jewels.We wanted to purchase the whole store basically, i.e. the definition of a store crush.
5. Nota Bene: The mentoring session in round tables with Chantal Durivage, Denis Gagnon, Britta Kroger in the form of Q&A round tables between beginners and those established fashion personas. Chantal Durivage hinted at a possible F&D festival in europe and put the emphasis on the importance of having a partner with complementary skills in business to share the highs and lows and build a strong team together as she does with her husband, the cofounder of FMD. Britta spoke about the importance of passion, that secret ingredient that drives you and makes you move mountains and the importance of not burning steps in your quest to the top of the mountain. Denis Gagnon reinforced Chantal’s point of having a complementary, skills and knowledge wise, partner, focusing on your primary activities and avoiding to spread yourself and risk confusing your customers and the importance of not being affraid to be more hands on at the beggining to gain experience through volunteering and learning the basics of sewing. He also spoke about the rarity of seemstresses on the market, observed by many designers in the industry.
Photo credit: Chris M. My Addikt and Nota Bene (Benoît Vermette).
