Art house fashion

Canadian designer Jeremy Laing has jet-setted around the world showcasing his incredible talent to the world, but as his most recent project demonstrates, the 29-year-old Toronto resident has exacted a fine balance between international press and national pride.

Freshly plucked from the runway, Laing has selected looks from his fall/winter 2009 collection to outfit staff of the Canadian Pavilion for the lavish Canada Party at this year's International Art Exhibition-La Biennale di Venezia, running June 7 till November 22. “It’s a big honour,” gushes Laing in a telephone interview the day before his departure to Italy. “It’s the first time that anyone has really collaborated in this way for the Biennale.”

Traveling to Venice by way of the luscious Florentine countryside, the designer is anxious to both visit the biennale for the first time and to behold the affinity between his "sober" collection and the works of the pavilion's featured artist Mark Lewis, at the world's oldest and most esteemed exhibition of contemporary art. "I think aesthetically they have a lot in common," says Laing of the pairing. "There's some parallels with [Mark's] subject matter and my approach to garment constructions."

While "friendly with a few" Canadian designers, professionally he admires designers from the Belgium school, as well as some of the up-and-comers on the New York scene including Ohne Titel.

For a designer boasting commendations from fashion bibles style.com and Women's Wear Daily, Laing's enthusiasm for his partnership with the Canadian Pavilion is refreshing, if not a little surprising.

Though Toronto-based, Laing's career has largely unfolded on foreign soil, and intentionally so. "It was something we aimed to do in the beginning, just in terms of accessing out a much broader market than there is domestically." While "friendly with a few" Canadian designers, professionally he admires designers from the Belgium school, as well as some of the up-and-comers on the New York scene including Ohne Titel.

Like Titel, New York Fashion Week is Laing's runway of choice, even still, the designer champions his hometown's contribution to international fashion. "I think they're doing a really good job planning and hosting and putting on Fashion Week," Laing says of the FDCC. "There's not really anyone else who can do that or certainly no one else who was doing it."

The process of getting fashion out onto the market is a fascination of Laing's; in fact, his passion for the business behind the brand arguably trumps that for fashion itself. "It isn't only the design that is important or inspiring to me, it's probably the least," affirms Laing. "I find approach and process and integrity to be equally if not more important."

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Find out where Laing find's his inspiration