The Ottawa Fashion Show (OFS) is a new organization aiming to revitalize Ottawa’s fashion scene and build community among local artists.
The organization is planning a fashion show for September, which was originally scheduled for March but was postponed due to the spread of the Omicron variant. In the meantime, organizers have taken to Instagram to create a COVID-safe platform to spotlight local Ottawa designers and foster excitement.
David McKenna is the creative director and a founding board member of OFS. He said his idea for the fashion show came from combining a few of his interests, as well as pandemic circumstances.
“I was running a commercial cleaning business when the pandemic hit and I really had to make some adjustments,” McKenna said. “I got out of that and started doing a lot of work and projects digitally.”
He hopes the Instagram page will help grow and unite the city’s fashion community.
“What I see in this space [Ottawa] is a lot of people who are doing really great things but are kind of in their own spaces,” he said. “There isn’t enough connectivity.”
Cameron Bruce, a third-year communication and media studies student at Carleton University, started his own clothing brand, Vices+, last year. He describes it as a mix of street fashion and high-performance athletic wear.
Bruce was the first designer to be featured in OFS’s local showcase series on Instagram. This series is part of the lead up to their September show that Bruce plans to take part in.
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“My other pursuit in life is running. I wanted to combine my love of fashion and my love of running and make some stuff that you could run really fast in and that [looks] kind of stylish,” he said.
Bruce started Vices+ almost a year ago, mid-pandemic. He said that he thought about starting the company since high school, but that the pandemic prompted him to start “testing the waters” with designing, since he had more free time.
“My mindset starting was, ‘I got nothing to lose… The world is honestly on fire right now. I might as well do my own thing,’” Bruce said.
Last year, Bruce released individual pieces of clothing, but this year he is looking to start dropping whole theme-based collections.
“The first collection that I’m going to be dropping this year is going to be kind of like a throwback to the early 2000s, drawing inspiration heavily from the styles that were big when I was a kid,” Bruce said.
When he started Vices+, Bruce said he didn’t focus much on local partnerships, but after getting involved with OFS, he got inspired to be more involved locally.
“[They] kind of inspired me to put a little more thought into trying to build relationships… I really want to collaborate with a lot of people in the city,” he said.
Another local designer, Kayla Campbell, stumbled upon OFS when she was internet-browsing to find fashion shows in the area to promote her brand, Melleium, which she started a year ago on Etsy.
Campbell said she’s excited about the initiative because she “wants to be more involved in the general fashion and arts community.” She also said mainstream fashion plays a role in the smaller players of this community being overlooked.
“Ottawa is a little bit of a boring town to start something like this, but there are so many little clothing lines and so many little artists [and] photographers under the scenes,” she said.
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She added that mainstream fashion often overlooks smaller fashion communities and the local designers in those communities are what she’s hoping this show helps find.
Not only does OFS aim to create a space for designers, McKenna said it’s also hoping to connect all sorts of Ottawa artists through fashion—such as models, photographers and visual artists.
The show will help local visual artists display their work as background visuals in its September display, as well as local models of all backgrounds, experience levels and ages.
“It’s a showcase platform for all forms of artistry. Someone who’s a model who wouldn’t otherwise have an opportunity to showcase themselves as a model can start to build a portfolio. Same thing with visual artists,” McKenna said.
Looking forward, the OFS organizers hope to host fashion shows twice a year, as well as host other side projects. McKenna said he hopes to develop some mental health initiatives for local artists.
“The bigger the event gets, the larger the attention towards the art and fashion space as a whole grows. And then there are more opportunities in terms of local funding at the municipal level,” McKenna said.
“Especially since COVID-19, people are starting to dress very strange and I’m here for that. I can go to Walmart and someone’s wearing a bunny hat and [I say], ‘Good on you,’” she said.
McKenna also said he would really love to see Ottawa be put on the map as a fashion capital.
“Revitalizing this space is something that I’m really looking forward to,” he said.
McKenna said that his team will be launching their website soon and that more information on the September show and ticket sales will be available once a venue is secured. He encourages any local artists who want to get involved to reach out to OFS via Instagram.
Featured image by Spencer Colby.
