Fashion Monday with JJ Lee

The city of Vancouver is trying to complete a seawall circuit around the downtown peninsula but it has to go through one of the city's most historically rich and socially complex streets: Carrall Street. To complete the Seawall walk, Carrall Street will go through a makeover. It's refered to as the " Carrall Street Greenway Project ". Carrall Street will be the final piece of a puzzle creating a waterfront walk going from Crab Park in Gastown, all along the Burrard Inlet, around Stanley Park to a seawall along False Creek through Livingston Park to the border of Chinatown and Downtown or International Village. The design is meant to attract tourists and encourage a vibrant street life for residents in the area. It may not be the most expensive project in the city, it's only $5 million, but it is one of the major undertakings by the city even when held against major infrastructure projects such as the $1.7 billion RAV line. Like the Woodwards development, the Carra...

From Mara Gottler's Spring/Summer 2007 collection, the designer contrasts minimal jacket details with a profusion of expressive pant pleats BC Fashion Week wrapped up. I went to two shows that caught my interest: Shelley Klassen of Blushing Designs and Mara Gottler. They were a study of contrasting design approaches. Both their runway shows were on Friday night at Performance Works Theatre on Granville Island in Vancouver. Seen together, they provoked thoughts about the role of BC Fashion Week. We are in a globalized fashion and media environment where places like Paris, New York and Milan seem to get all the attention and eclipse local efforts to the point, one needs to ask, "Who needs local design?" And who needs BC Fashion Week? Doesn't it merely ape what goes on at the fashion centres. More importantly, do exercises like BC Fashion Week have any impact on design and fashion culture in this city and beyond? Shelley Klassen, the head of Blushing Designs, is a good ...