Connally McDougall’s voice, as calm as the surface of a summer lake, does not give away that she has been up for most nights this month. Vancouver born and now residing in London, UK, Connally is working on showing her Fall-Winter 2014 Collection at Vancouver Fashion Week on March 20th. “By the time I show it, I would have had just under four weeks to create the collection! I am doing everything myself. From the design work, to cutting the patterns, sourcing materials, sewing all the garments, fittings and research.” Her excitement is palpable. “I do my best work under pressure. It is intense. I am functioning on about four hours of sleep a night but I am just so thrilled to get the opportunity!”
We talk on a Tuesday morning in early March with spring just around the corner, fighting the clouds. Me at my work desk at home in Vancouver and Connally across the Atlantic, overlooking, I imagine, some chic London streets. We seem to share the same overcast weather, me in the early morning and her at dusk. I am nervous and excited at the thought of speaking to this talented, self-produced fashion prodigy.
Born in Vancouver, she spent very little time in the city. Her parents were missionaries and she spent most of her life travelling around with them “mostly in Austria and then boarding school in Hungary.” She moved to London to study fashion at the prestigious Central Saint Martins in fall of last year. Up until then she was self-taught. “I taught myself through textbooks. Since my family and I travelled, I made friends with the older ladies in town who would show me how to do hand stitching and quilting- the really traditional sewing techniques. That is where I found my love for sewing.” She also has a strong enterprising side. She raised money for her move through crowd funding campaigns and small fashion shows.
The move has proven to be extremely fruitful. Connally agrees that the infrastructure for fashion designers is superlative in London. “There are more fabric stores and resources for young fashion designers here. Once you get integrated into the right loops then it is about working really hard and having someone hear about your work and tell their friends who then might know a designer. It is a chain of events.” She is also a big fan of materials sold in the UK because they are still made locally. Quality materials and sustainability are integral to her designs, “[they] are hallmarks to my work”.
Connally is a strong spokesperson for ethical fashion. I ask her what constitutes ethical fashion. “I think excellent fashion design is ethical. Nowadays you see a lot of green fashion and fair trade products. Quite frankly the idea is there but there is no design behind it. Forgive me for being blunt; it ends up being a little ugly. Whereas when you set out to make something excellent you want to use the best materials. The best materials do not come from a sweatshop. They come from people who love what they do. From people working at a mill that is producing wool tweeds to people working at a button factory making fastenings.” Connally makes her own patterns and puts together her garments with her own two hands. “For me it is an easy choice to make ethically produced garments. I want to respect the people who have made the ingredients for the clothing that I have made.” Fair labour practices in the fashion industry have become important in the lights of the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh. The disaster claimed an estimated 1,134 lives as a result of unsafe labour practices that continue to be widely prevalent in the commercial garment industry today. The event is approaching its one-year anniversary on the 24th of April. “I take it as my responsibility to be an activist for sustainable practices for fair wages in labour, and presenting quality collections. The reality is that considering the amount of time it takes to make a garment, from milling the cloth to sewing in the garment tags, and the sets of hands a garment goes through, we so rarely pay what it is actually worth.” Connally’s practices have strong ethical roots. She is serious about where her fashion comes from and is in tune with the repercussions of her choices.
What then is her definition of fashion? “Fashion for me is something timeless. It could have been worn ten years ago. It can be worn ten years from now. It is that favourite garment that you can count on when you have an important meeting to go to. You know you are going to have a good day when you put on that red dress.”
When making clothes Connally keeps in mind strong women like her “mother, Tilda Swinton, Maya Angelou and Meryl Streep”. She explains the reasoning behind her fascination for dressing strong women, “I think the biggest sex organ is a woman’s brain and I love it when you see a woman and you go ‘Wow that is so clever what she is wearing! That is really interesting’. As opposed to ‘Wow every part of her is hanging out!’ Strong independent women are the people I love to dress.”
Connally’s inspiration wells are numerous and run deep. “Seeing women in an indigenous context” is a big influence for her. She counts folkwear, the ballet, the theatre and paintings in her inspiration sources. “Gustav Klimt did a wonderful job of painting aristocrats and wealthy women. He captured both their attitude and the garments they were wearing”. In the fashion world she looks up to the fearless Miuccia Prada, as well as Prada’s predecessor, Elsa Schiaparelli. “[Schiaparelli] was a really innovative designer who was influenced by art and not by what was trendy. The woman worked with Salvador Dali and Man Ray to produce her collection. Definitely a creative woman.”
Connally’s extensive history of travelling, it seems, gives her the ability to appreciate beauty in a variety of ways. “It teaches you to respect difference and it allowed me to marvel at the menagerie of different textures and textiles out there.”
The Fall Winter 2014 collection, Remote Places, is inspired by Mongolia. “[Mongolia] is a country that very much like Canada is a huge land-mass but has a very sparse population. It is still remote enough to be left separate from the passing fads of western society. The way the people dress both for utility but also out of ceremony is inspiring and captivating.” The collection comprises of “different quilted, feathered, knitted and woollen elements to really touch on a global perspective”. With this collection she wants to show the cultural perspective of Mongolian tribeswomen and with each new collection she aims to bring a new cultural perspective into the global spotlight. “The world is so much bigger than beyond our front door and despite our differences we’re all connected,” she says.
Among the fabrics, wool and alpaca will take centre-stage. She beautifully waxes lyrical about the colour palette, “some very bold reds. As well as really sensory colours like nutmeg, charcoal grey and turmeric yellow. Really saturated colours but with neutrals in between.” Hand-knit and hand-dyed materials will keep with the traditional element of the collection. There are some textural tangents as well. “You are going to see some very sheer dresses and blouses, and then some very heavy almost cocoon like capes. I am also featuring millinery works. Three hats are entirely made of feathers. Those will be a real surprise.” Connally worked with talented milliner Tierre Joline to create the hats. She is also working with a jewellery designer whose pieces will be shown alongside Connally’s looks.
“There is a magazine in Victoria that is sponsoring me with the models, the hair styling and the makeup. The magazine is called Niche magazine. They have been really instrumental in getting the word out about what I’ve been doing,” she explains. The opportunity to show at Vancouver Fashion Week came to Connally through Niche’s editor, Tracy Drake. Niche is showcasing her collection so that eventually prospective retailers will be able to carry the line.
She is striving to keep her budget for this collection under $1500, when a usual Fall Winter Collection takes about $5000. She launched an online crowd funding campaign through indigogo.com to help with the funding which is still ongoing (http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/fashion-week-fund). The project aims to raise enough money for Connally’s plane ticket to Vancouver, her accommodation and would offset a bit of the material cost.
A big fan of vintage haute couture in her own wardrobe, which London charity shops make so accessible, Connally wants her brand to stand for excellence and timelessness. “It means that a woman who is 25 could put on a Connally Macdougall piece and feel amazing, and a woman who is 75 could find a piece in the collection and feel amazing. I want people to be absolutely head over in heels in love with my pieces that they purchase.” She reveals that her personal style is tailored and minimalist. She revels in simplicity while working but dresses up when she is not.“Whether it is a 20s beaded flapper dress or a pair of gorgeous cashmere trousers.” She reminisces about changing three, four, five and six times a day as a little girl and driving her parents crazy. What a wonderful gift dressing up is. “We get to be girls. We get to be women!”
Having started in 2008, Connally has come a long way. There are clients all over the world wearing her pieces. Australia, Brunei, England, Colombia, Italy, Canada, to name just a few, “Well not Antarctica but I am working on that!” She has plans this year to expand Connally McDougall Design in studio space and staff. “Having a strong retail presence is the next goal.” She is looking forward to the reception her collection gets at Vancouver Fashion Week and the opportunities that will consequently stem from it. She wants to extend the label in such a way that quality is not compromised, “right now when I am making everything by myself I have the strictest quality guidelines because it has got my name on it. I made everything so I have ridiculously high standards.” The future, no doubt, looks bright for her label. After fashion week in Vancouver she will be headed to fashion week in Los Angeles in May, “it is all snowballing really quickly!”
How does she stay grounded with the constantly buzzing world of fashion around her? I wonder if she ever has to get away from it all. It turns out that not only does London keep her busy but it also keeps her perpetually inspired. “There is such a kaleidoscopic landscape of museums, different cultures, and experiences here. Whether it is just going down an avenue that I have not seen before and seeing the street art, or going to a market and smelling all the spices. That really helps. I always bring my little sketchbook with me to jot down notes and draw small silhouettes.” When she is not thinking about fashion she is an ardent cook, “I love cooking. I just made a huge pot of curry and a potato salad.” Going for runs and spending time with her family give her the breaks she needs from long periods of being bent over her sewing machine.
The excitement mounts for the day her garments walk the runway. “I have just chosen 6 of my models. They are a wild range of different looks and ages, so I am really excited.” The music is set to be all cello and drums. “You won’t hear electronica at my show!” Her family and friends must be more excited about the show than her. Brian Hendricks, her mentor who saw her through art school in Victoria, is going to be there despite a fragile health condition. “My sewing machine has been breaking down every single day. It has been little things like that that could easily drive me up the wall but [Brian] and his wife have been a great encouragement. He has been like ‘Well, you know you’ve still got your hair. Keep going! Keep plucking away, kid.’ ”
At 25 to have dressed customers all over the world and developed a brand name that is synonymous with quality and elegance is nothing short of prodigal. Connally owns a silent but strong aura of certainty. Her drive is as strong as a river and it is headed in very much the right direction- into the seas of global recognition. You know the feeling you get an hour before fireworks are scheduled to go off? That is how I feel for her. She is on the precipice of something big. Her show at Vancouver Fashion Week is set to bring strong femininity to the runway, along with her signature visual and tactile lushness.
Connally McDougall shows her Fall-Winter 2014 Collection, Remote Places, on March 20th at 7.30pm at the Chinese Cultural Centre in Chinatown Vancouver.
-Prachi Kamble
(Printed with the permission of Fame Blog Canada where it was initially published).