Danielle Meder is a talented fashion illustrator as well, as a fine blogger of culture and all things fashionable in the local Toronto scene.  I first met Danielle at a photo shoot Buy Design, a charity dress up “ball” event for Windfall, a award winning initiative that donates new clothing and other basic to social service agencies. Her illustrations of Barbarella, the theme for Windfall 09 were fun, whimsical and simply really darn good.  Please meet Danielle Meder:

EM: Occupation and Position
I’m a fashion illustrator, and I have a moderately popular fashion blog.

EM: Can you tell us a little more about your concept?

Not sure what this means, but I guess what interests me about fashion is the development aspect – so, design, patternmaking, illustration – and beyond that, the business aspect, the social aspect. I like to use fashion as a lense through which I try to understand the world.

EM: What neighborhood do you closely identify with? What makes your
community unique?
I am a Canadian through and through, with a passion for Canadiana and specifically the Canadian Shield landscape of North-Eastern Ontario – trees, rocks, lakes and old worn down mountains, relics of ancient glaciers. In Toronto, I am a downtown girl but not a trendy-neighborhood girl. I like to be able to walk wherever I want, but I selected my studio location based on highest-proximity to downtown/largest square footage/lowest rent. Its hardly a neighborhood – I’m located between high end “loft” condos on one side and low-income housing and homeless shelters on the other.

EM: What inspires you?
Processes inspire me – great tools and equipment, techniques inspire ideas.

EM: What is the greatest item you’ve found in a local garage sale?
I’ve never been to a Garage Sale locally, but I am a frequent thrifter – I think my favourite finds tend to be great vintage denim – I love labels like Lee and Wrangler and Jordache.

EM: Where are your favorite local spots to eat?

I don’t eat out often, but I love shopping at St. Lawrence Market in Toronto, especially very early in the morning, and loading up on bread and cheese and Ontario fruits and veggies.

EM: What bands are at the top of your playlist at this very moment?
Lately I’ve been listening to MSTRKRFT, Philosopher Kings tracks from the nineties, truth be told, a lot of top-40 stuff from the nineties, Wallflowers – remember Jacob Dylan’s band?, the new Moby album, April Wine, Dolly Parton, Katy Perry, The Tragically Hip, Slave to the SQUAREwave, Sebastian Tellier, and other randoms.

EM: What is your favorite bedside read?
I love going to the library and always have a few fashion-related books on the go. I also love collecting older magazines – people just throw them away. Its fun to pick up a Harpers Bazaar from the nineties, or a Vogue from 2003, and get transported to the recent past – in fashion we forget the recent past very quickly, so revisiting it can be a novelty.

EM: What is your favorite place to visit when you travel abroad?
I’ve never travelled very far abroad – only as far as NYC, which is definitely one of my favourite places. My wishlist of travel destinations is all travel cities – Paris, London, Berlin, Amsterdam are at the top of the list – but I would also love to visit California, Texas, Hawaii, Tokyo and Hong Kong some day. I’m awfully provincial right now.

EM: Lastly, what kind of projects do you have coming up?
I am currently taking on my first teaching gig which is a big challenge – I think I’m learning a lot more than my students at this point but that’s par for the course whenever you try something new. I’m also doing more watercolour painting which is a fascinating and difficult art that has a lot to do with preparation and a light touch. I usually try to come up with a project to go along with Fashion Week in Toronto, so I’m trying to figure out what my angle is this season. And I am planning something very different and special for 2010 – a vast art project that poses the question – “if you could design anything you wanted, what would you design?”.

http://finalfashion.ca/

via Jen Tse, 29 September 2009 9:01am | 2 |