{"id":72477,"date":"2016-03-15T23:55:13","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T03:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=72477"},"modified":"2016-03-15T23:55:13","modified_gmt":"2016-03-16T03:55:13","slug":"greta-constantine-looks-future-canadian-label-marks-10th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/03\/15\/greta-constantine-looks-future-canadian-label-marks-10th-anniversary\/","title":{"rendered":"Greta Constantine looks to future as Canadian label marks 10th anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Designers<\/a>
Designers Kirk Pickersgill and Stephen Wong are celebrating a decade at the helm of their luxurious womenswear label. (Facebook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TORONTO \u2013 Fresh off of a successful showcase in Paris, Canadian label Greta Constantine is marking a major milestone on the Toronto runway while also envisioning new ways to expand the brand.<\/p>\n

Designers Kirk Pickersgill and Stephen Wong are celebrating a decade at the helm of their luxurious womenswear label, whose moniker combines the names of Wong\u2019s mother, Greta, with that of Pickersgill’s grandfather, Constantine.<\/p>\n

Greta Constantine will close out fall-winter presentations at Toronto Fashion Week on Friday. They\u2019re also among the womenswear nominees in contention for the Canadian Arts & Fashion Awards being handed out April 15.<\/p>\n

Wong said they’d love to venture into the accessories and lifestyles arenas in the future, but the duo also remains focused on the present as they reflect upon their anniversary milestone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty significant for any company, I think, to hit a 10-year mark,\u201d Wong said seated alongside Pickersgill at their spacious downtown Toronto studio, with rolling racks of colourful dresses punctuating the space.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut being a fashion business in the fashion industry in Canada specifically… it\u2019s a much smaller market here, and it\u2019s that much more difficult to establish yourself enough to last 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making the journey abroad wasn’t initially a part of the plan, but the duo acknowledged that it became a necessity given the limitations of the homegrown market.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get to a point where you’ve gotten as big as you can within your own country\u2026 \u00a0And in order to grow, you have to go elsewhere, spread out your wings in the rest of the world,\u201d said Wong.<\/p>\n

The duo have been dubbed \u201cJersey Boys\u201d after initially establishing their name in creating designs fashioned from the soft, elastic knit fabric. But as the label evolved, so too did their inventory of materials and their embrace of more structure in their designs.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve cultivated a high-wattage clientele list along the way, dressing Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Hudson and Victoria Beckham as well as homegrown notables including supermodel Coco Rocha, actor-director Sarah Polley and \u201cOrphan Black\u201d star Tatiana Maslany.<\/p>\n

Wong started his career in Toronto as a costume designer for Susan Dicks & Co., designing clothes for films including \u201cAmerican Psycho,\u201d \u201cChicago\u201d and \u201cHairspray.\u201d Pickersgill was previously based in Milan and has worked for international designers including the U.K.\u2019s Neil Barrett and Canadian-helmed label Dsquared2.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the reasons these guys were so successful is that they didn\u2019t start their brand when they were 20 (years old) coming out of school. They started it later in the game when they had really deep and strong experience,\u201d said Bernadette Morra, editor-in-chief of Fashion Magazine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat gave them not only the skills that they needed to create fabulous, women-friendly clothing, but it also gave them time to really think about what their place was going to be in the business\u2026 what they could bring to the international fashion scene that was unique, that did not exist, and how they could build that brand to stand out in the great sea of fashion brands in this world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pickersgill said he and Wong are \u201cbasically cut from the same cloth,\u2019 and feed upon each other\u2019s creativity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe both don\u2019t have any formal fashion school training, so we went away and found our own training and I think that all came together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat helps us to create the company and make it bigger. And again, there\u2019s no rules. There\u2019s nothing holding us back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2013 Fresh off of a successful showcase in Paris, Canadian label Greta Constantine is marking a major milestone on …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":72478,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[9636],"class_list":["post-72477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fashion-and-beauty","tag-cp","mauthors-lauren-la-rose","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}