3 Toronto creatives making their mark in design, fashion and lifestyle

March 13, 2022 CanCulture Magazine

Take a deep dive into the individuals causing ripple effects in Canada’s creative industries.

By: Marianne Semaan

Sean Brown, Lisa Gozlan and Amanda Rach Lee

Those in the Toronto creative industries know that it’s not easy to make a mark. So it is all the more important to acknowledge the work of up-and-coming creators, especially when they’re based close to home. CanCulture has gathered three of our favourite Canadian creatives that are making a mark this year, ranging from the fields of fashion to design to illustration.

1. Sean Brown

Experimenting with furniture design, clothing and creative direction, Sean Brown is a multidisciplinary creative from Toronto who does not hold back from testing his creative limits. While Brown, 35, has been in the fashion realm since his clothing line release NEEDS&WANTS in 2013, his new ventures into homeware and creative direction have propelled him into an endless stream of popularity within the creative industries.

Curves, the name for Brown’s homeware collection, can be classified as “a contemporary take on everyday objects” featuring a mirror in the shape of a puddle, casted hands incense holders and most famously, CD-shaped rugs with notable hip-hop albums.

When speaking about his work in an interview with the New York Times, Brown stressed the importance of including Black culture in everything he did. With a growing passion for designing homeware, Brown notes that his new design ventures will include creating full-blown furniture pieces such as tables, couches and bed frames.

When he is not growing his furniture line, Brown takes his love for creating in another direction as the mastermind behind all of Daniel Caesar’s visual media. His most notable project entails his artwork behind Caesar’s Freudian — an album that was nominated for Artwork of the Year at the 2018 Juno Awards.

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2. Lisa Gozlan

Lisa Gozlan’s jewelry has most likely popped up on your Instagram feed at some point — especially her stackable rings and gold happy face bracelet. The young jewelry designer has always been in the creative scene as her exposure to design began from interning for Joseph Mimran, the founder of Joe Fresh. After numerous years working in the fashion industry, Gozlan leveraged her husband’s expertise and experience in the jewelry industry to finally start her own line.

As her jewelry is prepared for everyday use and all walks of life, Gozlan adds her unique touch to timeless designs of rings, bracelets and earrings. Another element that contributes to the popularity of her pieces is affordability, with items starting from $40. While pieces can be more affordable, one thing Gozlan always keeps in mind is to never compromise style or quality—a guiding principle that continues to shape her newer designs.

In the summer of 2021, Gozlan responded to her increasing demand and popularity by opening her very own showroom in Toronto’s Yorkville neighbourhood. Located at 87 Cumberland St., the shop offers a curated display of pieces for shoppers to have a unique and hands-on experience with her work.

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3. Amanda Rach Lee

Toronto-based creative Amanda Rach Lee is an artist and digital content creator that has taken the YouTube world by storm. At just 21 years old, Lee’s content focuses on DIY arts and crafts and bullet journaling — a form of journaling that merges drawing, planning and writing. In 2016, Lee started seeing success after posting her first bullet journaling video, a phenomenon that not many YouTubers had tapped into at the time.

After witnessing a steady increase in success, it did not take long for Lee to drop out of X University’s media program and commit to YouTube full-time. Her work also exceeded the realms of YouTube as companies such as Microsoft, Crayola and Samsung saw her design potential and offered to collaborate on various sponsorships. In November of 2019, Lee took matters into her own hands and created her own planner that sold out at a Toronto pop-up shop in less than a day.

In her most recent collaboration, Lee embraced her Canadian roots and partnered up with Tim Hortons to design limited edition, customized “Valen-Tims” cards. With the addition of Tim Hortons to her resume, there are no limits to what Lee can accomplish in 2022.

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Vintage makes a comeback in Dior’s 70th anniversary at the ROM

March 15, 2018 CanCulture Magazine

By Regina Dickson

With the steady return of all things vintage to the fashion world, an exhibition showcasing 70 years of Christian Dior’s couture is bringing classic vogue to the Royal Ontario Museum. Thirty-eight thematically-arranged dresses are the main attraction of the exhibition. Most of them were donated to the museum by Toronto and Montreal socialites. Each dress is supplemented with a placard revealing its unique history.

“One of the neat things is to read how [each] woman who first owned this dress used it and wore it,” said visitor Lynn Fraser. The designs are from Dior’s first collections, christened as the New Look by Harper’s Bazaar, from the post-war period of 1947 and 1957.

The New Look controversy

The controversial 1947 New Look collection called Corolle and Huit presented 90 styles, which on average used 20 yards of fabric each, violating France’s post-war fabric restrictions. The dispute stemmed from the violation of the law and the very feminine silhouettes, which were drastically different from the masculine war uniforms that shaped the French tradition of that time.

The look consists of a calf-length full skirt, a cinched waistline and a fuller bust than what was common since the early 1900s. It’s a very feminine look, particularly compared to today’s popular fashion, said visitors Gabriella and Cokie Ponikvar. Senior curator Alexandra Palmer said that the popularity of the exhibition is two-fold.

“It’s very focused in its time frame, and it looks at those first ten years of Monsieur Dior in the 1950s, which is a time that resonates with people, because of [the] red carpet,” she said. “It’s clothes that we understand and imagine ourselves wearing, but we do not have that lifestyle, we’ve moved on. There’s a certain romance in the style associated with it.”

She also explained that the information in the exhibition added to its success, seeing as it wasn’t just about “pretty dresses” and people are interested in learning new things. The accompanying placards for each garment offered attendees information about who designed each dress and how it was designed, “People are taken a bit by surprise when they discover the range of things that the exhibition covers,” said Palmer.

The dresses are arranged according to the time of day. Daytime designs include coats, suits, and casual dresses, while late afternoon styles consist of cocktail and dinner dresses, and evening designs are comprised of ball gowns and formal gowns.

In addition to the clothing, more than 100 Dior accessories were on display, consisting of earrings, necklaces, purses, shoes and perfumes. The dresses are enhanced by Dior’s original sketches, his notes and fabric samples.

Christian Dior’s first fragrance, Miss Dior, gleamed in the spotlights on a miniature podium. The fragrance was named by the designer in honour of his sister Catherine, who was temporarily imprisoned in a concentration camp for joining the French Resistance.

There’s a lot to learn about the late 1940s and early 1950s in France from Dior’s New Look collection. It came out during a time of genderless war uniform attire and broke fashion ground with its femininity.

Vogue wrote about Dior’s accomplishments in fashion, “The opulence of his designs contrasted with the grim post-war reality of Europe, and helped re-establish Paris as the joyful fashion capital it had once been.”

Then and now

The dresses, being over fifty years old, were received in great condition, said Palmer. Could clothing that’s produced today stand the test of time to the same extent? Many would say no, and that today’s styles lack quality and attention to detail.

Visitor Maure Kentner said, “(Dior’s) collars and his shoulders [are] just beautiful. There are no rough edges on the finishing and he’s used wider seams. He’s also used methods to make sure that the seam doesn’t show.” Kentner believes that the quality material we see in fashion today is nowhere near what it used to be.

Despite the thematic arrangement of the dresses, even the daytime styles are a lot more ornate than today’s popular fashions. Kentner’s friend Lynn Fraser said, “The fashion for casualness has taken over.” Kentner added Dior’s 1950s style is “one that we need to get back.”

This piece was edited by Aya Baradie.

Rising stars: Vincentian-Toronto designer Rhonique Ballantyne

March 1, 2018 CanCulture Magazine

By Aya Baradie

Making fashion sketches during law class on the small island of Saint Vincent in the Caribbean, Rhonique Ballantyne never imagined her success as a fashion designer in a fast-paced city like Toronto. Now, only a few years later, she sits with numerous awards, including “Best in Show” and “Most Media Ready” for her latest fashion collection, Artifice. She studied fashion design at Seneca College in 2011 and received a diploma in fashion design. She opens up about her journey to fashion and her own struggles and successes as a new designer:

Describe the process of creating a design from the idea to the finished collection.

There's nothing simple about translating an idea from your mind and then bringing it to life. It's a whole process. The collection [Artifice] took a whole year to create, focusing all my energy on how to do it properly. I start by finding a few ideas and adding them to my inspiration board. This includes shapes, colours and silhouettes. I had to do over a 100 sketches for a four-piece collection. Sketching out 100 different outfits gets you the full range of ideas and that way you get the best of the best basically. After the 100 sketches, you condense it even further and develop those outfits that stand out.

What was your latest collection "Artifice" inspired by?

It was actually inspired by a game of chess. I very much knew I wanted to pick up those faceted pieces and that can all be reflected in this collection. I didn't want my final collection to be just flowers or something else overplayed. This collection would set the pace for the rest of my career and so I wanted it to have meaning behind it, and chess is a game that is very rich in metaphors. The pawn in a game of chess is able to transform into any piece it desires as long as it successfully navigates the board and makes it to the other side. That really struck a chord to me what with my own upbringing and where I started out in life. It doesn't matter what hand you're played in life, you can choose to navigate it as you please and really make a change.

What challenges do you experience while you design?

My challenges were mostly financial. Fabric is really expensive, so I had to make do with the finances I had at the time when I was in school. I do think that the challenge of money helped me to really get creative with the resources I had. If you really analyze the pieces, they are all just simple materials, but the way it presents itself is of much higher value.

What happens when you get stuck on a piece?

This happens quite a lot, but when it does, I feel like I just have to walk away from it for a bit and do things that don't relate to fashion. There's a lot of beauty and inspiration in the world outside of fashion. Music, in particular, is really helpful when I'm stuck on a design piece. I tend to listen to artists whose passion can be felt in their music, like Beyoncé and Kanye West, feed off their energy.

How did you get into fashion?

Before I even started out in fashion school, when I would buy clothes, it would make me feel very confident about my image. That feeling of confidence that fashion gave me was a big reason for going into this industry because I realized I wanted to give that feeling to someone else.

Did you have an "Aha" moment that made you realize you wanted to do fashion?

My grandmother was a seamstress and I spent a lot of time watching her work while I was growing up. I feel like what she did really resonated with me. Even in the Caribbean while I was studying law, I would get distracted easily during class and I would be sketching outfits.

Tell me about your transition from Saint Vincent to Toronto.

Saint Vincent was an incredibly small island and I think I always knew I wanted to do bigger things for myself outside of the Caribbean. Coming to Toronto, it was definitely difficult. I would get lost a lot and attract stares because of my heavy accent and I didn't really have any friends here when I first started out. It's like you're starting your life from scratch.

How has your Caribbean upbringing influenced your work ethic?

One big thing I was taught growing up in Saint Vincent was to be resourceful. We didn't have much going on for us on that tiny island, but we made the most with what we had. We also were used to waking up very early in the morning to get work done and that's a habit I carried on to Canada and has helped me succeed as a designer.

What motivates you to continue designing?

My family is a huge motivator for me. My mom raised my siblings and I as a single mother and most of what I'm doing is thanks to her. I feel like each generation should aim to do better than the previous one and I want to create a legacy for my family through fashion. I feel like I have a certain point that I'm trying to get across with fashion and designing helps me share it with the rest of the world.

How was your family's support when you decided to pursue fashion?

When I first applied to the fashion program, my mom thought I was applying to nursing. When she found out I never actually applied to nursing, and that I got accepted into fashion, she was really upset and we didn't talk for a couple of weeks. She thought it was a joke telling me "How could you do fashion design with no sewing experience?" I had to show her what I was capable of doing and how hard I was willing to work to succeed. After winning a couple of the fashion competitions at school, she saw how dedicated I was and was happy with my decision to go into this program.

This piece was edited by Isabelle Kirkwood.