Grandma’s Closet

Sara Forsyth

Kate Clark visited her grandparents every third weekend when she moved to Toronto; it was more often than she ever saw them growing up in Calgary. Being close her grandparents was one reason why she chose Toronto in the first place. In between her fashion design classes at the Art Institute of Toronto, Kate painted her grandmother, Dureen’s nails, washed their dishes, and memorized their old photographs. 

Kate’s grandmother had always been the sewer of the family. She was sick now, but delighted to find her granddaughter fawning over the crumbling patterns she kept in old milk bags. Her grandfather, an artist and illustrator, helped Kate with her fashion sketches.

About a year ago, Kate started seriously working on the concept and theme of her own label, Dureen.

“That’s the way my grandfather said her name,” she says. “Instead of calling her Doreen, he would yell ‘Dureen! Dureen!’ I discovered she was a lot more fashionable than I had given her credit for.”

Kate’s grandmother died in May. It happened just about a month before Dureen’s debut and Kate’s graduation from the Art Institute. Her first collection comprised 13 pieces – all influenced by her grandmother’s wardrobe in the 1940s and 50s. She took the simple, yet ultra-feminine hourglass silhouettes favoured by her grandmother and married them with glamorous 90s hard rock excess – which is more reflective of Kate’s personal style.

A cropped vest made of fur from her grandmother’s coat is clasped together with a few gold chains. A demure white dupioni silk bustier is contrasted with a high-waisted skirt with a sinister leather panel in front. A small “D” is stitched into the vest’s lining. It was her grandmother’s as well.

“I made a promise to her and to myself to really pursue this and take an honest shot at it,” says Kate of fashion design. “I haven’t put a ceiling over my head. I’ll never stop designing. I would like to fully develop the Dureen label. I would love to have it sold at a really great boutique. I mean, if I ever saw anything of mine at Sak’s, I’d probably faint.”

Today Kate is working at a clothing store and designing pieces commissioned by friends, friends of friends, and flight attendants. A few days after her show in June, Kate flew home to Calgary. She wore a creamy cropped jacket of her own design.

“(A flight attendant) stopped me and said: ‘Oh my god I love that coat. You probably bought it at Holt’s, right?’ So I gave her my card.”

She’s also thinking of incorporating denim and S&M undertones into her next collection.

“It’ll be a challenge every time I do a collection for Dureen,” says Kate. “To have continuity yet make it new and fresh.”

It’s a challenge Kate welcomes. After all, she promised.