Sometimes wild things happen that stay forever ingrained your very DNA. That is exactly what happened to me at my very first fashion show at Vancouver Fashion Week with some of my early wearable art.
In 2024, I was gifted tickets to Vancouver Fashion Week by a colleague’s home staging company. My husband and date for the night (who I should tell you is a far cry from a fashionista), boldly decided to wear one of my first textile experiments which was a one-off boro boro inspired kimono I made the year before.
Throughout the night he was repeatedly asked: WHO was he wearing?! (In all fairness, he was selling it — and looks rather modelesque.) Then to our surprise half way through the show we were moved to the front row! The moment was unplanned, a novel idea that quickly escalated, and I was hooked! Ideas started percolating in my mind.
THE NEXT FASHION SHOW
By the time the following spring season rolled around I created a second design. This kimono was originally constructed as a costume for a close friend’s MET Gala–themed party.
It was a nod to high fashion and used a Japanese paper manipulation technique called Momigami. Think hand kneaded luxury magazine ads like Prada and Louis Vuitton that become a sort of fabric that is then reinfoced. This entire project was inspired by the intricate paper manipulation art of UK artist Louise Jannetta.
This time I was nervous. It was weird, and I didn’t know how it would be received. To my surprise, it caused an even bigger stir. My husband ended up giving multiple fashion blog interviews at intermission. I still have no idea what he said, we were wildly unprepared.
This was a pivotal moment in the driving force behind me becoming a full-time artist, but not the only one.
Around the same time I attended a one-on-one coaching session with the brilliant Michele Laurent, who helped me see how often I’d been placing restrictions on my own creativity.
In addition, shortly after, I was working with an extremely creative photographer Ashley MacPhee who shared words of wisdom that forever shifted how I view my work and myself. Both moments anchored a deep lesson: vulnerability is part of the creative process. Don’t be afraid to be myself.
That’s how brïz was born. Pronounced “Bre’s”, it is my label and I suppose only a visual pseudonym that I use solely for my wearable designs.
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