TORONTO –
A designer born in Port Hope is one of only two Canadian designers invited to the prestigious Boston Fashion Week event next month.
Boston Fashion week 2012 begins Sept. 20. It all started in 1995 as a means of spotlighting the viability and visibility of the industry — throughout Greater Boston and beyond — with invitations going both to established and up-and-coming designers.
Chris Nevin was working as a hair stylist in Toronto when he got the call — a woman identifying herself as a representative of the Boston Fashion Week and inviting him to be one of only two Canadian designers at the event.
“I thought it was a joke,” he said.
Nevin turned them down the next two times they asked, largely because he couldn’t afford to accept the invitation.
Then he lost his job at the salon and figured he had nothing to lose.
Nevin (like his parents John and Cathy, a Port Hope High School graduate) discovered his calling during his high-school years, he related during a telephone interview last week from the Go train (the most economical way to visit his parents for a weekend).
“I’m not entirely sure how it happened. All I can remember is being in Grade 9 or 10, and drawing these body forms and drawing dresses on them — usually when I was bored in math class.
“Sketching is something I always found time for. The more I got into it, the more I learned about it, the more I started to realize it was something I really had an interest in,” Nevin recalled.
“I learned to sew in home ec class and, from there, I went into Grade 12 fashion.
“That is really where it took off. My teacher was so supportive, always showing me things or shoving fashion magazines in my face. I realized this is something I really had a knack for.”
Nevin enrolled in Seneca College, but didn’t like the school and left after a year.
He transferred to the Ryerson University fashion course, moved downtown, made new friends, and loved it.
“Everything was perfect at Ryerson. I finished after two years and got my certified stylist certificate,” he said.
That was two years ago. He’s been sewing and designing ever since, and considers experience his best teacher.
“It’s just so much fun to teach yourself, when you find something and realize, ‘So that’s how you do it.’
“You can be so much more creative when you are just designing with imagination. I don’t know how to use patterns at all. Everything I do is from draping — it’s like making a pattern in your head. I feel it’s more of a creative process.”
The Boston show will be his first real chance to travel, and his first plane ride.
How the Boston people found him, he can only guess — Facebook, maybe, or perhaps they stumbled on to a blog.
“I’ve been in a few publications — I’m not sure if they saw that,” he guessed.
“It will probably be the biggest experience of my life. I’ve never been able to show in front of this amount of people with those kinds of connections. There’s a lot riding on this show, and I’m so excited, but also really scared and nervous.
“I can’t wait to go and show and, hopefully, have someone in the audience notice who could do something to make things change for me.”
Nevin has been in about 20 shows so far, but most of them were charity shows. These are really a lot of fun, a low-pressure opportunity that doesn’t cost him a lot and is a good chance to get friends involved.
But you can only do so many charity shows, he said. It’s time to move on.
He is 23, still paying back his student loan and very much the typical starving artist. His friends and family members are all doing what they can, and Nevin would appreciate any support from the community.
His website christopherjnevin.com has a PayPal set-up through which contributions can be made.
“Anything is appreciated, even as little as $5 — it all adds up,” he said.
cecilia.nasmith@sunmedia.ca
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