Toronto's L'Oreal Fashion Week Fall 2006
Designer Features & Collections | Sonja
Andic Diary | Ashley &
Jodi Experience | 5
Day Fashion Industry Q&A | Social
Scene Photos | After
Party Shots | Models
Backstage
Joeffer
Coac
Beauty in Calamity
 Three
swanlike women dressed in Joeffer Caoc are looking satisfied.
They are surrounded by a crowd of photographers, journalists,
and curious on-lookers. A spray of black tulle decends at
the knee to the floor on the first. A second is wrapped in
orange metal taffeta like an exotic candy and the third is
sheathed in something that hugs her narrow frame like glistening
liquid obsidian.
I
am backstage at Toronto Fashion Week. My interview with Joeffer
Coac is supposed to be right now and he is nowhere to be seen.
I jot down a few notes and hustle my way to the front of the
crowd to snap a few pictures of the models.
They stand like Venuses rising out of the ocean - only this
is an ocean of half empty foundation compacts, kleenex, Q-tips,
blow dryers, piles of empty Evian bottles, ruby pots of creme
blush, translucent blue makeup remover, lipstick tubes, eyebrow
penciils and brushes of every size and shape imaginable.
They make a nice metaphor for Caoc’s collection, entitled
‘Beauty in Calamity’. With chaos everywhere, they
are the pure, perfect distillation of Caoc’s imagination.
When I finally find him, he is dressed for work, a sign of
modesty - especially rare in this business. I ask him about
his inspiration. “It’s about a certain girl,”
he replies. “She’s been through alot and all of
the clothes are haphazard and,” he pauses, “and
a little fucked up.” Something about the compassion
in his voice tells me he’s not the kind of designer
who gets his ideas by reading trend report books. I remember
the flawed heros of Greek myths. They are compelling because
of their imperfection.
Sure enough, when I ask him whether he drapes or drafts his
collection, he tells me a lot of it is mistakes. “All
the pleats just form how they form. We drape the pattern and
we tell the sewer what to do but we don’t know exactly
what it will be. You think you can drape a fabric this way
and sometimes it’s totally different than we expect.”
So where else does he find inspiration?
“I admire the Japanese, Yohji Yamamoto, folding fabric
like paper.... I wanted technically to do certian things...
like the tucking and the seaming. Taking two pieces and manipulating
them. Trying to wrap the body, let the fabric fall off the
body in a different way, layering.”
He
succeeds marvelously at moments. The wrinkled, wrapped and
layered dresses he sent out to close the show were floating
visions of black witchcraft in whipped black cellophane. Technically
remarkable, he manipulated rivulets of tucks across the bust
and over the hips, to acheive an almost sculptural effect
with the fabric. He riffed on the old fashion classic, the
‘little black dress’ making it look new with a
scooped neck and capped sleeves. An oversize black coat wrapped
the body in loose layers of softly draped wool. The chunky
black jewellry, which was provided by The Beadery on Queen
St. looked perfect with the black-on-black look that highlighted
texture and form. A white satin trench and occasional burgundy
and houndstooth appeared but all of his strongest pieces were
in black this season.
Caoc designs wearable, marketable pieces. His best work though,
is dreamy and poetic - as he puts it, ‘ a little bit
fucked up’. It would be nice to see more of this side
of Caoc next season, as he obviously has the moxy and talent
to pull it off.
Irene
Stickney
Show Photos on their way...
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