Style was a numbers game Tuesday: Marie Saint-Pierre celebrated 25 years of fashion on the first day of the 23rd edition Montreal Fashion Week. The esteemed designer also presented her new spring-summer collection 2013 with a show and video installation at Montreal's new Arsenal centre.
Saint-Pierre's logo sports both her name and the name of the city she's worked in for the past 25 years: Montreal -- the same city she's helped put on the fashion map. Saint-Pierre started her label in 1987; two years later she was invited to La Coterie in New York, and later to Paris in 1994. "We started small: it was me and a sewing machine. Then it was me, two sewing machines and a helper. Just the basics!" she explains on the show's sidelines.
Over the years, Saint-Pierre has firmly established her identity and a singular esthetic. Her clothes express a marked elegance, underlined by classic cuts and colours, and her pieces often borrow from contemporary art and architecture. For spring-summer 2013, street art and embroidery influenced her creative process -- you'll see false embroideries on dresses that evoke graffiti images, others that are more organic, and still others that are animalistic and decorative.
The designer says she's not one to follow trends -- rather her inspiration comes from two things: women and well-being -- and they've kept Saint-Pierre coming back to the designing table year after year.
See: Marie Saint-Pierre and other designers show their collections at Montreal Fashion Week Day 1
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