The turnout for the opening of Seneca’s Oh Canada! exhibition last night couldn’t compare to the glittering cabal of celebrities, editors and celebrity editors who walked the red carpet for the MET’s Costume Institute gala honouring Alexander McQueen in New York on Monday. But that didn’t make the rainy, rush hour run north of the 401 any less satisfying.
And while the grey Seneca College campus at Don Mills and Finch has got nothing the grand old MET, Oh Canada! pulls from the college’s Fashion Resource Centre archive to highlight the extraordinary Canadian content in its collection. There’s some Wayne Clark glamour and Peach Berserk prints, lovely Lilliput hats and even Joe Fresh separates. The exhibition’s standout looks are a Marilyn Brooks trio in black with ruffled tiers of polka dots on their collars, sleeves and hems but my favourite discovery was designer Claire Haddad and her 80s-era hand-painted silk pieces.
The show is open daily from 10 am to 7 pm until Saturday but if you can’t make it up by the weekend, don’t worry. The party’s real revelation (aside from the fact that New York society dressing favourite Arnold Scaasi was born Arnold Isaacs in Montreal) was the archive itself, which is open by appointment. The college renovated an old planetarium to create a dream closet that stores 10,000-plus pieces of clothing from the 1840s-on. In Toronto, only the Royal Ontario Museum can claim a similarly covetable wardrobe.
Last night, professor and costume coordinator Dale Peers let Brooks, Haddad, Peach Berserk’s Kingi Carpenter and a few other lucky guests loose in the archive to flip through threadbare flapper frocks and the most gloriously gaudy 80s gowns. Hundreds of hatboxes are stacked to the ceiling sandwiched between miniature drawers holding costume jewellery or retro eyewear and designer racks packed with pieces by Yves Saint Laurent, Gucci, Halston and, even, McQueen.
