Dropping science

Chantal Gagnon’s Fashionlab sits at the intersection of art, fashion and design

by GENEVIEVE PAIEMENT

Cover photo by Jason Felker

When it comes to pinpointing the geographic location of fashion design’s vanguard, Tokyo, London, New York and a handful of European capitals come to mind. What, no Montréal, Québec? Evidently, we’re not on the trailblazer list. But all this may change if Fashionlab founder Chantal Gagnon has her way.
“All these years I’ve been fighting to have fashion design valued in Quebec and to have it shine at an international level,” says Gagnon of her new venture, a monument to Montreal fashion, furniture, graphic, jewellery, interior and any other kind of design you can fathom.

Located in a sprawling storefront loft on Sherbrooke just west of St-Denis, the glass-fronted cubic space with ultra-high ceilings has a museum-of-the-future feel to it. Lit-up headless mannequin torsos by Gender stand draped in white leather, lace, silk and cottons, slashed and frayed, splattered with origami fabric forms and other tactile details.

Totem poles made of engraved metal and circuit boards by internationally renowned monumentalist artist Marie-Josée Beaudoin stand beside an installation by Emannuel Sévigny wherein swimming goldfish activate a projection of computerized colours onto a white parachute dress. Two textured all-white paintings by Céline Élise Dion (no relation to you-know-who) hang beside a white “throne chair” with fresh white flowers sprouting from its back, by Sophie Morlaàsse. This month’s theme (if you haven’t guessed): “White Techno.”

Next month will be Ethnic/African in conjunction with the Nuits d’Afrique festival. “We find a trend of importance and then around that we build a theme,” says Gagnon. “We’re here to help designers get discovered and help international dialogue happen. We seek out one-of-a kind pieces that you might only see in a fashion show or magazine, so you can see it up close and touch it.”

Gagnon, who started out in fashion design in Montreal in the ’80s, spent the last 15 years running her own trend research and development agency during which time she travelled the world, sniffing out the seeds of trends to come. “Seeing that Montreal’s design community is very young and we don’t have the status of the larger cities,” Gagnon continues, “I thought we needed a place where we could help this kind of Québécois creativity emerge. I’m a patriot, I want to put Quebec in the spotlight and at the same time, open it up to global currents.”

Furnace filter fashion, diaper design

It’s difficult to visit a major museum anywhere in the world today without stumbling upon a fashion- or design-related exhibit—the gallery-boutique Fashionlab seems to be another marker of the marriage of fashion and art. “We do have fashion and design at the core of our operation,” Gagnon points out, “but we associate with all different kinds of visual arts. It’s the idea of plural affinity, that all forms of creativity are inspired by other forms of creativity, it’s all about inter-relatedness and inspiration.” And, of course, experimentation in the name of technological innovation. “The person who invented elastic had the idea of stretching fabric,” Gagnon muses. “It’s from ideas like this that evolution in the industry happens.”
Gagnon’s own experiments with industrial materials serve as perfect examples. A half dozen mannequins sport her sculptural creations made of air conditioner and furnace filters, shoe laces, diaper material, fibreglass and static-charged dust cloths, some reminiscent of architect Frank Gehry’s wild constructions. And after 15 years spent away from the trade, Gagnon plans to launch of a new collection of her own designs next season, spurred on by positive reaction to the Fashionlab.

“In Quebec fashion right now, we have two generations—those who started 15 or 20 years ago, like Dubuc, Marie Saint-Pierre and myself, and then the young ones who’ve just come out of school, but are very prepared, like Duy and Cycle 5, a young design duo,” Gagnon explains. “I like mixing young and old because the young ones aspire to the more established designers’ status, while the older ones want to stay ‘in.’”
And if all this doesn’t keep her busy enough, there’s the marketing/consultancy/development/event-planning agency she runs from the back of the lab. The agency deals in “the art of living.” Huh? “Everything related to what’s in the space,” says Gagnon. “The things that make up a civilization, all the things that, historically, you can characterize a society by: what they wore, what tools they used, how they lived. We want to manifest this in 3D.” l

The Fashionlab is 314 Sherbrooke E. 934-2525