Otiena Ellwand is a second-year journalism student at Ryerson University and an intern at CHEEK Magazine. She loves all kinds of design - from fashion to architecture - and she thirsts for adventure and seeks it not only in her own home of Toronto, but around the world. She has a unique, colourful, and inspiring sense of style. Otiena certainly doesn’t blend in, but that’s okay - she doesn’t want to.

How did you dress in elementary school? How about in high school?
In grade 4, I had an awesome pair of lime green platform shoes that I wore everyday… The Spice Girls influenced that decision! In high school my best friend and I paired odd combinations of things together. We tried to be creative with our clothes because it was fun and we wanted to stand out. A lot of the girls we went to high school with wore Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister so we sort of did it as a rebellion.

I have this bright yellow dress with little blue owls on it that I bought in Kensington Market. I wore it a lot in my teenage years; on dates, to school, to Greece, and I was made fun of mercilessly, but I didn’t care because it so perfectly represented my personality. I still wear it today and I still get made fun of although now it’s a little bit “cooler” to be seen sporting a vintage dress like that one.

You do a lot of traveling. Has this affected the way you see fashion?
I love traveling and every time I do, I try to pick up a few pieces that I feel either really represent the place, will remind me of it, or are just unique pieces that I won’t be able to find back home.

Last year I lived in Indonesia and dressing was tricky. It was extremely hot and I needed clothes that were comfortable, durable, that I was willing to get dirty, and most importantly, that covered me up because the majority of Indonesians are Muslim. I didn’t really care how I looked so I opted for baggy shirts and capris. I did get some beautifully patterned cloths, one of which I got made into a mermaid-shaped skirt. It isn’t really something I would wear in Canada, but in Indonesia I got a lot of compliments on it. It’s funny how the clothes that were fashionable there would never be fashionable here. They really like patterns and baubles. They have this traditional dyeing technique that makes a pattern called Batik and that’s what they wear for formal occasions. It is really something to see all of the men in these intricately patterned shirts instead of black dress suits.

Sometimes I have a lot of difficulty with having a fashionable image. I want to dress nicely, look and feel good, and indulge in fashion, but I also feel like I only feel those ways when I am ‘dressed up’ in makeup and nice clothes. Shouldn’t we feel all of those things even when we’re just looking exactly like ourselves without any of that stuff? As I adapt to where I am, so does my sense of fashion. Each scene differs from the next; I guess that’s the fun of fashion, after all.

Colour is a huge part of your personal style. Why do you think it’s important to wear colourful clothing and accessories?
I can’t help it, I’m just addicted to colour. Colour has always been apart of my wardrobe. I had a fascination with the colour turquoise and wanted that to be the colour of my wedding dress (hopefully my future partner won’t mind!). I have tried to put more black into my wardrobe because I hear that it is sophisticated, but really, black isn’t me. I’m an outgoing and positive person and colour is just another way I reflect that. If I’m going to live in a cold, sometimes ugly and grey place like Toronto, I best amuse myself with the colourful outfits I put together.

Oteina’s top ten favorite clothing stores in the world:

- Stephanie Fereiro

Liana Schmidt is a photographer whose work you may recognize from WORN’s “This Shit Ain’t Free” make-up column in every issue. Liana is also one half of Arianna, an art-duo, and she published an ever-charming book called Paper Dolls in 2007. Liana is a member of Toronto’s Mercer Union, and is helping organize this year’s OMG SWAP, a clothing swap where you can pay a $5 entrance fee and walk away with all you can carry. Watch out for expert hoarders - they may be violent.

You’re a part of Mercer Union, which promotes the production of art of all kinds. How does fashion fit in?

In a sense, fashion fits into Mercer’s culture because a lot of artists in and around the gallery can get especially creative with their clothing. On a more general level, fashion and art seem to influence each other and tend to be visual references from which we can look back on to define a particular time.

Can you tell us about the OMG SWAP? Why do you think it’s important to share and recycle clothing?

The OMG SWAP, conceived by Xenia Anemia of the Mercer Union board, is a fund-raising opportunity for the gallery and a community initiative; it’s also a great opportunity to socialize, cleanse your closet and find new pieces for spring. For a $5 entrance fee you can pillage a great deal of clothing and all leftover clothing will be donated to Sistering, a woman’s agency serving homeless, marginalized and low-income women in Toronto. Recycling clothing is an obvious inclination if you have ever seen the warehouses that vintage buyers pick from. There is a lot of excess clothing kicking around out there.

Many of your photographs are surreal and disturbing. What inspires this connection between fashion and the supernatural or dream-like?

Fashion is often otherworldly. Gareth Pugh and Alexander McQueen (R.I.P.), for example, have produced garments that err on the side of Science Fiction. he majority of the imagery I have done for WORN has come from Arianna, my collaboration with Erin Fraser. Our work comes from short attention spans, an interest in film and a bad sense of humour.

Do you think there is a difference is between “fashion photography” and photographs of people with nice clothing?

There is a difference. Fashion photography mainly serves to promote, whereas the latter encompasses a lot and suggests a more candid and documentary style - if you are referring to sites like Facehunter.

Where did you get the idea for your Paper Dolls book? How did you decide on what characters and outfits to include?

I wanted to put together a book project with the creative people around me and paper dolls seemed like a way to pay homage to my friends in a manner that perhaps only famous people are treated to. I asked subjects to bring a few outfits of their choice to my studio, where we sometimes improvised with materials lying around. I liked the idea that a stranger could have a lot of my friends cut out and lined up on their shelf. It’s weirdly intimate.

- Stephanie Fereiro

Mary Lennox, played by Kate Maberly in the 1993 film version of The Secret Garden, is one feisty girl. She is determined, strong, and fearless, and refuses to let anyone boss her around. She breaks all the rules and doesn’t think twice about it. She is curious and intelligent, though intolerably ignorant. Mary is all of those things, and if that’s not enough, she is also extremely well-dressed, thanks to her (stereotypical) country bumpkin of a servant, Martha.

The first time I saw The Secret Garden, I fell madly in love with Mary’s wardrobe. Everything she wears, from the beginning to the end of the film, is classically beautiful. What I want to know is, why am I not Mary? I did go through a childhood dress phase…

The opening scene shows Mary being dressed by servants who wait on her hand and foot, until the earthquake that hits her home in India and leaves her orphaned.

When Mary first arrives in England after the death of her parents and a boat ride from her home in India, her outfits are entirely black, and would be rather suited to, say, Wednesday Addams. Mary can pull off the “girl in mourning” look just as nicely as Wednesday, though without the pasty skin.

“What would you like to wear?” asks Martha, “black, black, or black?”
“Are you blind?” snaps Mary, pointing at three identical dresses. “They’re all black.”

Mary’s style seems to grow and change as time passes. After some time spent settling into her uncle’s castle-like home, Mary’s consistent choice of a black, lacy dress and a permanent scowl wanes. As excitement in Mary’s life rises, so does the excitement that her wardrobe brings me. New textures (ruffles, knits, and pleats) and patterns (plaids and florals) are added, as is some beautiful winter clothing — which is one of my favourite parts of Mary’s wardrobe.

On her first visit to the secret garden, Mary opts for a pea coat, a floppy red hat, and two perfect braids. This is a look I plan on copying, shamelessly, when “new coat time” comes next fall.

Dresses like this one replace Mary’s funeral garb rather quickly. This ruffled, plaid frock is feminine and fun. It shows Mary’s true personality at a time when she finally learns to embrace it.

Even Mary’s nightgown, worn on many secret trips to see her cousin at night, is pretty. It matches the rest of her wardrobe perfectly with its pure white lace and pleats.

When Mary finally takes her cousin out of quarantine for a romp in the garden, she wears this white, frilly, lacy, ribbon-belted tea-party dress with white tights. She has come full circle from the “black, black, or black” dresses she wore upon her reluctant arrival at Misselthwaite Manor.

Mary Lennox will forever be held in my mind as a style icon. She is so much more than a fictional character to me. I’m sure that years from now, I’ll still find myself searching for screen-shots of her always adorable and immaculate outfits, and wonder why I never opted to wear plaid ruffles or braids with matching bows.

If only we could all be trapped in childhood forever, with a wardrobe like Mary’s and a secret garden to play in with our best friends. Our clothes would never get dirty, and we would always have fresh flowers to put in our hair.

- Stephanie Fereiro

As much a history lesson as it is a chronological account of fashion happenings in 1960s London, Boutique is an attractive, easy-to-read, and overall pleasant approach to explaining the impact of the boutique. Author Marnie Fogg hopes to demonstrate just how the rise of boutiques in the sixties “gave voice, form, and location to the youthful desire for independence and personal freedom, and in turn led to an unprecedented awareness of fashion as a vibrant medium of self-expression.” By talking about the clothes themselves, as well as the individual retailers and designers who provided new styles to shoppers, and, most importantly, the meanings these clothes expressed in the context in which they were worn, Fogg takes an intelligent and informative stance on a topic that could otherwise be light and fluffy.

The word “boutique” originally defined a shop within a shop, or a section of a department store that offered entirely different merchandise than what was available throughout the rest of the store. In the ’60s, boutiques began to separate from department stores, opening their own doors on obscure back-streets and alleyways, and they initially required shoppers to search for them. With the rise of innovative boutiques such as Biba, Mary Quant, and Granny Takes a Trip, which were set up to feel more like a closet or bedroom than a market, shopping became an exciting activity for those with money.

Boutiques gave more credit to designers and quality than department stores ever did, and they allowed shoppers new means of self-expression and creativity with their wardrobes. Because independent boutiques didn’t offer mass-produced merchandise, they had very limited numbers of garments that sold out quickly, causing a fast turnover of styles. There was always something new to buy, and if you were young, wealthy, and cool, you’d be in line to buy it.

Fogg’s use of images is perhaps what sets Boutique apart from other, often dry, straight-information history books. It does not, however, dumb down its subject. Each page of Boutique is filled with colourful photographs, designer illustrations, magazine cut-outs, and newspaper clippings - the text is almost secondary. Images are outfitted with lengthy captions that explain why they’re important, and each one conveys something that Fogg’s central text may have left out. Members of fashion-focused subcultures like teddy boys and mods are defined not by words, but through their own aesthetics in all their posed and photographed glory. Fogg’s choice of pictures makes the reading process feel quick and easy - you don’t have to imagine what happened to clothing when LSD became a staple in many young peoples’ diets; you can see it all in colour.

In addition to providing an interesting array of imagery, Fogg’s Boutique provides multiple perspectives on her topic, including those of industry retirees who have quite exciting memories of London’s fashion scene in the ’60s. Although it is sometimes difficult to tell which anecdotes come from interviews and which come from Fogg’s prior readings on the subject (her bibliography is vast, but her acknowledgements list several interviewees), the voices are seamlessly tied together to make Boutique feel more like a ’60s magazine than an informative work on fashion and lifestyle.

Fogg’s Boutique not only describes the merchandise, typical shoppers, and even the aura surrounding several different shops in London in detail, it also talks about the impact the boutique scene had on many facets of life in the ’60s. Besides the newfound fun in the activity of shopping itself - a result of more disposable income than ever before - Boutique discusses the lasting effects boutique culture has had on fashion magazines and art schools. With the sudden obsession with boutique shopping came a widespread desire to attend colleges for all types of fashion design, inspiring a generation of young creative workers. Magazines were no longer about women and the things they ought to enjoy. In the ’60s, they came to be “about femininity itself, as a state, a condition, a craft, and as an art form which comprises a set of practices and beliefs.”

I don’t think there is a page in Marnie Fogg’s Boutique: A 60s Cultural Phenomenon without at least one beautiful picture; there was creative, inspiring energy just seeping from each chapter; and my view of the ’60s is changed forever – no longer is it just “a period of drug- and sex-fuelled decadence,” as the book’s introduction implies. Now, it’s an era whose place in history I can say I understand and appreciate. At times during my reading I felt a bit angry, though: Why wasn’t I alive to experience the era in which “going shopping” was just starting to get interesting?

Boutique: A 60s Cultural Phenomenon by Marnie Fogg, Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, 2003
Reviewed by Stephanie Fereiro