The Gazette
May 13, 2008
by Eva Friede
Gazette Fashion Editor
Fashion ateliers don't get much funkier than this.
Designer Eugenia Leavitt shares her work space in a vintage classroom at Luke Callaghan Memorial School in Mile End with illustrator and landscape architect Tatiana Poblah, and nothing much as changed in the decor of the 1947 building. Strangely, Leavitte's bourgeois cocktail dresses, decorated with her signature rosettes, would fit right in with the post-New Look era of gently feminine A-lines.
Except for the fact that the fabrics are mainly organic, like silk-hemp or bamboo-cotton blends, and that when Leavitt models a prim purple
dress while sitting in front of the blackboard, her tattoos and flat ballet slippers bring the look into the here and now. Leavitt, 27, won a competition for new labels in Toronto last month, with a prize worth $25,000 including coverage in Elle magazine. The collection featured structured A-line cocktail dresses in purple or ivory silk-hemp blends, restrained soft jersey dresses in black and a show-stopping black ball skirt made entirely of rosettes done by hand.
Leavitt, who characterizes her look as feminine, said she wanted to combine her love of art and fashion in the designs. A graduate of Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Leavitt studied textiles before returning to Montreal to study fashion at the International Academy of Design. She hopes one day to create her own patterns for fabrics, but she acknowledged patience is key.
Rita Silvan, editor of Elle Canada and a judge at the Toronto competition, said all the judges liked that Leavitt took two elements - the craft of the rosettes, and the potentially very saccharine approach to fashion (the soft fabrics, the satin, the silhouettes) - and made them chic rather than just sweet. "Working with two things that can be somewhat cliche-ridden and very easily move into an area of sweetie-pie dressing, somehow she managed to veer it into something that was quite chic and quite wearable. "That was, I think, quite an achievement." A profile in the magazine is planned for fall, Silvan said.
Susan Langdon, executive director of the Toronto Fashion Incubator, which staged the comkpetition, said the judges appreciated that Leavitt
was open to suggestions on fit, fabrics and design innovation during the six-month process of the contest. It is the first time a Montrealer has
won the award from the incubator, with 300 members from across Canada. "It's an educational opportunity to understand what it's going to take
for designers to pull together a professional collection," Langdon said.
Designers met with the judges - from media, manufacturing and design - to perfect their collections over the six-month time frame. Now Leavitt, who launched her first collection in fall 2006, is ready and waiting for orders to come in. Sh emakes her living through private commissions, selling on consignment to boutiques like Le Marche Mtl, General 54 and Meli-Melo,and working as a seamstress for couturier Astri Prugger. Prugger, who has a small shop in Westmount and does mainly made-to-order designs, called Leavitt's work beautiful and charming. "She's got an eye for the little touches and details that people like," said Prugger, 46, who returned to designing six years ago after raising three children. "It's almost a calling," Prugger said of the commitment and determination designers must have to succeed. "It takes so much more than talent."
Leavitt is hoping to sell her collection for fall to more boutiques in Montreal as well as in Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax. She said she has people ready to do production should the orders come in. Langdon says Leavitt is tapping into a potentially large market by creating cocktail dresses in organic fabrics targeted to women in their 20s and 30s. "She's filling that void in the market," Langdon said. "She has a very good chance of making it," she added, citing Leavitt's talent, understanding of the market and "balancing that with design innovation." "I think I have to be patient, but I love doing it, so I'm keeping at it, " Leavitt said. "The competition helped me get my name out."
Prices for Eugenia Designs range from $95 for a top to $425 for a rosette-embellished cocktail dress. A rosette bolero or accessory to put over a top is $280. For more information, visit www.eugeniadesigns.com.
