Taking a break from designing his spring/summer 2011 collection, Drew William recently made some time to meet me at the VAG (Vancouver Art Gallery) to talk more about his fashion successes, most recently at Vancouver Fashion Week (VFW2010) April 7-11, 2010.  After all, it was that week, April 10 to be exact, when Drew officially revealed to the Vancouver Fashion Scene his women’s collection, making him a designer of both the guys and the gals.

When I approached Drew, he was looking so cool sitting on the concrete steps, leaning against the ones behind him with a coffee in his hand. Besides rocking a hoodie under a military-green jacket, a cameo cap, a pair of  Converses, and those mirrored pastel green-framed shades, you wouldn’t be able to tell just by looking at him, that this was a 24-year old whose designing career was about to take flight and soar.

As a student who by “fate”, ended up in the fashion industry, Drew joked about how he started designing: He was originally enrolled in Emily Carr for photography, which wasn’t where his heart belonged, because his passion had always been in fashion. He traveled to London for exchange at Central St. Martin’s, got misplaced in the wrong class (a design class), loved what he was learning, and the rest is history!

In 2007, upon receiving his degree and distinction in Fashion and Design, Drew began getting both feet in the fashion industry doors through opportunities where he was able to help out in various international fashion shows, such as those of European designer, Henrik Vibskov.  Travelling from Denmark to Copenhagen, to Paris, Drew took in and absorbed the inspiration and relevant experience he needed to start creating his own designs. This, combined with the lack of clothing in the market that he wanted to wear, resulted in Drew’s indefinite decision to start his own men’s line, Drew William.

VFW 2010-Vancouver Fashion Week 2010

It wasn’t until September of last year that Drew began designing women’s wear.  He originally set out to design clothes that he would like to wear, and he still does—but Drew now wants to focus on his women’s collection which he finds, receives more attention than his men’s.  And attention it did receive at the debut of his women’s collection at VFW2010 last month.  Drawing inspiration from artist Eugene Delcroix’s paintings, Drew William’s fashion show at VFW2010 was reminiscent of the French Romantic period, with his models wearing colors reflecting that time period such as beiges, maroons, blacks, and whites.  Some of the words Drew used to describe his show were “crashing masts”, “serene sadness”, and “sobriety of dead bodies” from Eugene Delcroix’s grotesque paintings.  Everything in Drew’s fall 2010 collection was done with an illustrative purpose: The hair on the models represented a reflection of clouds, the dark eyes exemplified zombies, or dead bodies, and the actual pieces that were worn by the female models were created with the illusion of “massive ships and sails”. The drapery on the dresses was magnificent, and Drew explained what most people probably were not aware of: “The technique on each dress is so important.  I actually had pieces of fabric cut into squares, and then turned them into the draping you saw on most of the dresses, to create the effect of a ship’s sail.”

Even the music was specifically chosen and made for his show at VFW2010.  Drew gives a huge shout out to Patrick Goski, a Montreal musician and more importantly, a friend, who collaborates with Drew to write all the music for his shows.

What does the future hold for Drew William?

Says Drew on his spring/summer 2011 line, which will have a focus on women’s clothing: “I’m still playing around with concepts. I like to create concept driven pieces that are unified.  I want to design more dresses that are flowing and draped, but with structure”.

Don’t expect to see any generically pretty designs, or models working it like they do in America’s Next Top Model.  Drew is not a fan of models strutting down the runway, which he calls “unfashionable”, and he is definitely not a fan of “pretty”:

“I think pretty is boring. No one is going to remember anything conventionally pretty. I want to challenge people’s views of what is beautiful”.

You can expect to see more pants, skirts, and dresses made from silks and chiffons, which he did not get a chance to design for his fall collection.  Drew would also prefer to have a darker theme, than one that is glamorous and bright.  He is looking back to the 80’s, and to other fashion designers such as Alexander McQueen, Bernhard Willhelm, and Gareth Pugh, for inspiration in his next collection.

An obvious perk for Drew in designing is also his original goal when he began designing men’s wear: to be able to wear clothes that he wants to.  Drew would prefer if you walked out of one of his fashion shows saying you either loved or hated it, and not fall somewhere in between.  To him, that epitomizes great clothing; to be able to fall into the ‘love’ or ‘hate’ category and not a gray area.  It is a blessing for him to share his visual language through fashion, and translate what’s going on in his head.

The advice Drew gives to all aspiring designers out there is not to worry about what everyone else is doing, and to focus on what you are doing.

“Don’t take yourself too seriously.  It’s too hefty for shows. A lot of people think fashion is super serious, and it really isn’t”.

Fun fact: The idea for Drew’s last dress at VFW2010 came from Halloween night, while he was hanging out with his friends, drinking a bit of bubbly, and doodling in his sketch book. There are over 130 pleats in the dress, and it took roughly 40 hours to physically produce. Sometimes creativity sparks when you least likely expect it to!

For the time being, Drew William clothing can be bought from his website www.drewwilliam.com, where his web shop will be launched this month.  Or, you can visit the cute store, Marimekko in Yaletown, to find his designs there.  Hopefully, we will start being able to purchase Drew William clothing from retail stores in the near future!

Written by: EUDORA KOH
Photos by: ALEX YELIZAROV

In the heart of the city on a Saturday night, Landmark Empire Hotel shone like a diamond even more so than it already does, thanks to the glitzy and glamorous presence of Vancouver Fashion week 2010.

As I uncomfortably walked in the venue half an hour late (parking was ridiculous to find), looking like I had put together my outfit from the second-hand store down the street compared to the stilettos and leg-bearing shiny dresses everywhere, I tried to contain my excitement..and worry.  I breathed a sigh of relief when someone told me his show hadn’t started yet.  And of course by “his”, I mean the one and only Drew Williams.

If someone told you Drew was debuting his first ever women’s collection that night, you simply would not have believed them after watching his show, which revealed his upcoming fall/winter 2010 collection, for both the guys and the gals.

All of his 12 pieces (5 menswear and 7 womenswear) looked so meticulously crafted from their initial designs to their execution in sewing technique. Every piece was done with perfection in mind. And perfection they were.

The show witnessed an eerie, unprecedented feel with the models’ slow and heavy steps down the runway, as opposed to graceful and fierce struts.  This resulted in such a strong effect for Drew’s show, because it wasn’t about flowers or bunnies, or bright flamboyant colors or styles.  The models seemed to be zombified (is that a word?) with dark eye makeup and stepping in time to the music of the show, whose strong offbeat rhythms were also very fitting for the overall presentation.

As for his actual collection, Drew utilized a lot of sandy beiges, deep maroons, and blacks as the dominance of his color palette of fabrics.  His female models wore beautiful dresses—not so much dramatic evening gowns as they were flirty yet sophisticated for a night on the town—and each piece had a touch of mystery to it. The solid colors sometimes were seen within an ombre print, giving off a very subtle yet effective contrast in color tones.  Many of the women’s dresses had draping, allowing the audience to focus on the way the fabric fell and pooled off the body.  The collection varied slightly, but held true to Drew’s style of original beauty and individuality.

The final dress of the show was truly exquisite, and one that I looked to in awe: a lightweight white dress with a black sheer layer on top of it, with the drapes falling into a collection of feathers at the bottom of the dress, and under the sheer layer (Doing a terrible job at describing; refer to the photo). It reminded me of the elegance of a swan.   The piece was so unique looking that I’m sure it left such a strong and lasting impression on everyone at Vancouver Fashion Week that night.  And I’m sure it hadn’t even crossed their minds that this was the first time Drew Williams had stepped away from menswear, into designing and debuting his first ever women’s line of clothing. He sure did one hell of a job.

Congratulations Drew!

Written by EUDORA KOH

Up and coming local designer Angela Chen of Orange NYC familiarizes us with the expression, “actions speak louder than words”. Sporting her new line at the 2009 Vancouver Fashion Week gave way for her to show off her creativity skills with minimal words.

As every girl knows that an absolute closet must-have is that perfect little black dress. OrangeNYC gives way to a new meaning of that perfect little black dress; the frock. A one-piece garment that’s slightly tailored yet worn to popularize big and free flowing comfortability.  Designed with simplicity in mind, it screams, “I’m sophisticated but flirtatious-ly fun” all at the same time. Frocks in backless V’s, collared V’s, big droop low collars and complete turtle neck cover ups filled the runway in style. A line that keeps it minimal in only black, white or a black and white striped print, OrangeNYC perfects the definition of simplicity.  Angela Chen brings a flavor of New York to the fashion streets of Vancouver all the while following the name of her game, “structured yet feminine.” But wait! Her showcase doesn’t stop with just her style of frocks, you can also expect to see more of the polished look with her sexy style of the jumper skirt in her 2010 collection….another future closet must-have? I think soo!

Sunday was another busy night at VFW, and designers from Killa/Architect and Dim Mak were set to showcase their lines for one of the final acts of the weekend. It was a packed house and the strutting models came out to a soundtrack of hype-house-LMFAO party rock. All Black Everything seemed to set the tone as men and women came out sporting a bevy of white on black printed tees. Architect introduced presumably a new line of superior quality pinstripe crew-necks, hoodies and cotton varsity jackets integrated with their innovative “switch” technology. Musician Steve Aoki’s lineup, Dim Mak, brought a third dimension to the runway with his bright and raw collection of shirt prints. The show concluded with nothing more than a heightened party mode, in collaboration with Killa Clothing, Red1’s Killawatt Records brought out two of their in-house artists, budding rapper Heatwave, and crooner, Lamar Ashe, to give onlookers a live and direct performance. Be sure to cop the collections exclusively at Architect in gastown on 48 Alexander.

Mandy, could tell us a little bit about your background?

I was raised in Coquitlam, and went to school in Coquitlam. After high school I went to Ryerson University and studied a program called graphics communication management. I was there for four years, learned about printing presses, learned about Gutenberg, sniffed some ink…

I also learned all the adobe programs, so I have a little bit of Colour Theory design background so that was pretty cool.

What happened after you were finished at Ryerson?

I worked a year in advertising in downtown Toronto, and that was pretty fun. I’m glad I took that direction instead of going into the print direction because advertising was fun while it lasted.

I don’t know if it is for me anymore but it as good experience in terms of learning about the whole marketing side of business, whereas print was all technology, so it was good to have a balance of both which the program was.

I guess you can translate that into what you are doing now?

I feel it is relevant into what I am entering now, with the fashion business.

You’re working with manufacturing, production, suppliers… It gives you and overall look as to how you start with a concept to get to a finished product.

It seemed as though fashion design wasn’t originally in the cards for you.
Do recall the point where you decided that this was the route that you should take?

I think throughout my life I grew up in a household where it was all about practicality. You need to get a job, you have to work in an office, you have to pay your bills so on and so forth.

I went to a very practical school, where it was all about technical skill. It was all about 90% job placement. It was in the description of the course. And it was in Toronto, so I needed to get as far away from home as possible.

It just got to a point where I did what I thought was right. I was challenged, but in the end I was just paying my bills.

I wanted to do something fun, and I was surrounded by some artsy people, too. When I went to Ryerson, I had friends in fashion design, in photography, theatre, dance. I thought, ‘this is really cool, what they’re doing’. They were doing something that they like.

It got to a point where I thought I wanted to do something for myself.

I really do like technical things, I like making things. I think it as important to be technically inclined and creative too. For example, there are a lot of designers who don’t sew. Yeah you can get away with that, but at the same time I don’t feel you can be directional. Like, if you can’t sew, it limits you as a designer and if you don’t understand how a garment is sewn then and you don’t understand how its supposed to work, because it is a garment in the end, its not art.

Like you aren’t painting an throwing something on someone as a walking piece of art. It’s functional. I feel its important, but I mean other designers have different objectives, like there are a lot of people who make a lot of money at what they do and they never touch a sewing machine. It gets to a point where you’re mass-producing; You aren’t making garments anymore, you’re just designing. I just feel if people know how to sew then they can communicate that to their seamstresses a lot easier.

I guess it gives a greater sense of creative control.

Yeah you can’t just be conceptual. You have to learn how to communicate your concept to the people who are actually turning your garment into a finished product.

The more you know technically, the more it benefits you.

We learned that through school, you just learn by doing. Like a lot of times you just make it up as you go along. At least that’s what happened with me anyways.

The whole collection was done over 6-9 months. You get to the point where you have so many ideas running through your head at one time, so 6-9 months is a long time to stick to one thing.

My original theme was inspired by ribbon and knotting. There is a lot of Chinese and Japanese art that has to do with ribbons. I was really inspired by those really decorative pieces, so I started out like that.

There was one piece that I did incorporate ribbons into it, but that was the only thing.

I started to look at different artwork and movies and it just made a huge turn. I think the ideas started coming when you start to make the garments when you start putting fabric on your mannequin you start to se different shapes and you kind of go from there.

It was a huge learning process and it was not easy.

I think that’s the case with most art too, right? You start out with an initial idea, but that evolves.

Yeah, totally. Mine kind of took a huge 180, but you know, I think it took a turn for the best.

Now what I thought was interesting were your descriptions of your pieces in the program given out at the show.

Oh yes… my descriptions. I’m going to have to explain it, won’t I.

You’re kind of all over the place!

Well that’s me in a nutshell!

I got a sense of elegance, but you also get… Jean-Luc Picard?

Well come on! You always have to have some sort of geeky element.

I mean fashion people are always so serious, and you ask people ‘how would you describe so-and-so’s collection?’ and they always spew out the same words! ‘it was so chic! So feminine! So luxurious!’

Now people can say yours is so Patrick Stewart! Or they’ll say yours is so Next Generation!

See, you’re a Trekkie! Everyone is a Trekkie deep down inside, we just don’t want to admit it!

Besides, Patrick Stewart is kind of hot.

People think that in fashion you need to be so cool, but I’m over that. Why don’t you just let it be what it is and have fun with it?

It doesn’t always have to be so serious. And if you look at all the major designers out there, there is a HUGE sci-fi influence.

Look at Gareth Pugh; he is a genius! He’s doing crazy Kubrick/David Lynch type stuff.

Look at Jean-Paul Gaultier who designed for a lot of movies like The Fifth Element, its totally theatrical and crazy. But when you look at it you totally feel something.

Of course, you aren’t going to walk down Robson and see someone in a building-structure of an outfit.

Well not yet.

No not yet, Vancouver’s not quite there yet.

Hopefully one day though!

Yeah, but some people look at those designers and say like ‘oh no one’s going to wear that’, but if you look at, it sets the trends and trickles down to the more subdued, contemporary designers.

They look to the huge designers and they wash it down a little bit. It’s the same shapes. It’s not completely off the wall as you think it might be!

But these big designers aren’t boring people. They want do something that you really want see.

I was really inspired by that. I wasn’t big on buying mall brands. I was more interested in the people that got me into the industry were like Gaultier.

Even though you mention, the sci-fi influence, I find there still is an element of practicality in your garments.

For this collection I took into consideration the audience that would be present of the show. I knew media would be there but most people were friends and family of the designers.

And I mean, we’re still a new city.

We’re not super fashion forward, but its getting better.

We’re not London, New York, or Tokyo, so we’re still new and hesitant on grasping new ideas.

Although people still do welcome that and the local designer scene is growing and growing. There are a lot more independent boutiques that you see that are accepting and promoting local designers.

The whole mentality of Vancouver is the green movement, or buy local, organic cotton, which is really great. But we still are kind of new as a fashion city, and I kind of took that into consideration and I still wanted to make garments and not put a piece of canvas down the runway. I wanted to make something that people would understand. I wanted to be accessible, but still me.

I think the worst thing in the world is to be boring. I think the worst thing a designer could be told is that their stuff is ‘boring’.

It seemed to pay off for you though; you ended up winning a bunch of the awards that night.

Oh yeah, all my friends made fun of me. They were like ‘oh, academic? Who’s the nerd who’s going to get this award?” and of course, I walk out

But it was still great.

Could you talk a little bit about your experience of the VCC fashion show?

It was the first time that VCC had a matinee show. So we had our first go at the venue then for students.

Thank God we did that because there were certain things that I saw that needed to be fixed. I thought the night over all went quite well. We were all really nervous about it.

We all had to stay up front, we couldn’t go back stage t fix our garments because that would have been to chaotic. But, it was nice to sit in the audience and see your stuff go down the runway and see how the audience reacted to certain garments.

Yeah it was a fun night, we have all been so stressed for so long, it was a good celebration.

Did you just find a moment where you let go and say “there’s nothing else I can do”?

Yeah you do get to that. A lot of my friends asked how the matinee went and my response was “UGH”, but there is nothing you can do about it so you just let it go.

One of my instructors said that time lines are a good and bad thing at the same time.

You’re always racing against the clock, and you hate it. But if you weren’t on a clock none of your garments would ever get done.

It’s hard to get to the point where you are absolutely 100% fine with it. That was a really hard situation for me to just let go, and hand in the work.

What’s next for you?

I want to freelance illustrate for the time being, so my next big thing is to set up my website. I have a splash page on it.

That was my big thing. I’ve been drawing since I could pick up a pencil. So, that was my first love.

I’ve never really done fashion illustration before. It was one of our teachers, Lisa Gellert, who is so interesting, and a bit of an eccentric character, and I know she knows it, but we all love her for it, that really got me into it. (She’s going to email me when she reads this. But hey Lisa, I looked up “eccentric behavior” on Wikipedia and it says “Eccentricity is often associated with genius, giftedness, or creativity.” So there you go.)

I look at my drawings from the first day of class and compare it to my graduation portfolio, and the difference is amazing. It was her who showed us how to draw a model, despite life drawing being one of the most difficult things to draw, and how to sketch naturally. Through the classes over the two years you really start to see a change.

I want do that, but I don’t want focus on just on fashion, I want to sketch other things too, so I think I want to freelance illustrate for the time being and make clothes on the side.

Right now I need to focus on learning more, maybe work on creating some of my own clothes and see what works and what doesn’t work. And that’s it just for now.

But my next big thing is Vancouver Fashion week. I’m entering the competition with some of the pieces from VCC, so we’ll see how that goes.

Do you have anything you want to say to anyone who is aspiring to be a designer, or even just an artist?

I think the most important thing is to really enjoy what you do and know what you’re good at. Try not to be so afraid of what you’re not good at.

One of the main things I remember from the program is that you need to be patient with yourself. It’s going to be a huge learning progress, and its not going to be really easy. You just need to be patient with yourself.

If you love it enough give it the time to nourish it, and don’t be too hard on yourself. Oh, and balance your life. Don’t let it be everything. It’s hard not to immerse yourself into it. See your friends; see your family… and exercise! You need your health!

Just take the time to just enjoy life.

Model:Belinda Zhu
Photographer: Pasha Khan