By: Jamie CessfordPhotos By: Alex YelizarovIn a small, single square room along the outskirts of Gastown Allison Smith, the power behind the Allison Wonderland collections, reviews the photos sent to her by her photographer chronicling her upcoming fall collection. Alex and I, having arrived ten minutes late from walking fifteen minutes in the wrong direction, received the honor of being introduced to the unreleased set as Allison shows some of her favorites from the photo shoot. The model that posed for the casual, minimalist, and at times innocent, spring pieces is suddenly transformed into a new version of powerful, highly confident sexiness.This transition decimated any implication of what the label Allison Wonderland meant to me.Gone was the image of a naïve (yet stylish), innocent (yet sexy) Alice, fumbling around a chaotic, subverted reality, and in it’s place stood an Alice determined to dominate Wonderland, all the while breaking as many hearts as possible.Simply put, Allison explains that she doesn’t limit herself to that kind of mentality while making clothes. Instead, she strives to make “clothes you want to wear”. “Not everyone wants to be a Space Cowboy all the time” Allison says, explaining her rational behind rejecting the pressures of maintaining a theme throughout her label. She tells me that it isn’t a unified concept that inspires these pieces; it’s merely the fabric and a desire to keep it simple that determines how her pieces evolve.Evolution, however, is not anything new to Allison Wonderland.Initially, the clothes Allison made were crazy “going-out-clothes” that varied from florescent green waitress dresses, to bright pink hot pants. Obviously, as she grew up, Allison found herself less inclined to make such clothing, in which case, her personal growth is reflected in her design. However, her trek down the rabbit hole transcends a mere ‘coming of age’; the current state of Allison Wonderland is the product of more intense self-reflection, bordering on an existential crisis.Fresh out of the two-year design program at Kwantlen College, Allison gained the experience of applying what she learned in school while working at a Menswear company in Montreal. However, upon only having a year’s introduction to the fashion industry, Allison became dissatisfied with her role within the company’s mandate, and left Canada to travel Europe. It was in Paris that Allison found herself in a compromising position, struggling to locate her place within the world of fashion.Naturally, she acknowledges this as a definitive moment in motivating her to dedicate her life to Allison Wonderland, a namesake she became attached to in her final year at Kwantlen. She relocated to her home in Vancouver, at a time where Vancouver wasn’t even a blip on the global fashion radar.Since then, however, Allison notes that Vancouver is definitely progressing as a fashion community and that the development of emerging scenes that focus on sustainability signify that Vancouver is becoming a fashion power. Allison also thinks that these emerging designers can compete with the designers out East. “I think the main difference is that Vancouver designers maybe make more realistic clothing”, Allison says. She continues to profess that making clothing that you can wear everyday and look good in on a day-to-day basis is an important quality of Western designers.In her most recent collection, that’s just hitting stores now, Allison has applied the concepts of growth and improvement to her pieces by taking elements of past trends and placing them into her clothes without focusing on a ‘vintage’ look. She finds herself primarily drawn to the seventies because of the diversity of style that existed in the decade, but she does engage with other style periods. “When working on things,” she starts, “I reference some past eras, or certain details without it looking like vintage clothing. Sometimes I’ll take details from the 70s, 80s, and 90s, updated it, scale it down, or do it differently”.With the release of her spring collection, and the completion of her fall collection, Allison currently hasn’t hatched a plan much further past planning the release of her fall collection. But deservedly, the rare downtime is always something to look forward to. “In this business, you get so caught up in what you’re working on immediately, so it’s hard to make future plans. You get bogged down with everything you need to. I don’t even know what I’d like to do!” she says as though this is the first time she’s even considered taking time off.Although this work ethic is something that is required at finding any degree of success in the Vancouver scene, Allison doesn’t necessarily condone diving into that mentality right out of the gate. In her advice to upcoming designers she emphasizes that young designers “don’t rush into too soon!” She continues: “you’ve got your whole life. Live your life, do some travel, work for other people. Figure it out, make mistakes while working for other people so you don’t have to make mistakes on your own thing”.Be on the lookout for her fall collection and you can find the new Allison Wonderland spring collection at Dream on 311, West Cordova Street, in downtown Vancouver.