Crochet on the Runway:
Interview with Canadian Fashion Designer Lucian Matis

by Kim Werker

After we wrapped our photo shoot for the Spring 2008 Interweave Crochet in December 2007, the photo stylist phoned me to ask if I’d seen the finale of the television show Project Runway Canada. He explained that the second-place winner, Lucian Matis, used crochet throughout his final collection, and I just had to see it. I don’t receive the channel, but I found photographs of the collection online, and they took my breath away. Since my passion is providing crocheters with patterns for wearables that flout the persistent and baffling assumption that crochet is inherently unfashionable, I was very excited to show a few images of Lucian’s work in the Summer 2008 issue. I had the pleasure of corresponding with Lucian during the weeks leading up to L’Oreal Fashion Week in Toronto, where he launched his Fall/Winter 2008/2009 collection.

Interweave Crochet: Do you crochet, yourself? If so, when did you learn, and who taught you?

Lucian Matis: Yes, I crochet sometimes. Most of the time I am too busy to do it all, so my mom helps me. This was one of the first skills I learned while I was in Grade 4 elementary school. I learned a lot about crocheting from my mom but also from my teacher. I really enjoyed that class, and it showed. My work was always being exhibited during that course . . . every single thing I created ended up in an exhibition.

IC: Why did you choose to use crochet in your collection on Project Runway Canada?

LM: I love the look and feel of crochet. It allows you to create your own materials, which adds so much originality and playfulness. Crochet also has a textural quality that you cannot find in any other medium or fabrication. I love incorporating “old” techniques and making them more modern, updating them . . . making them my own.

IC: What was your inspiration?

LM: The inspiration behind my collection was the joy and beauty of life. A celebration of beauty for all women. The arrival of spring, which, for me, equals hope.

IC: Why do you think crochet has a place in fashion?

LM: I think crochet has always been and always will be a fashion element. It gives the designer the chance [to make] his/her own materials without having to produce thousands and thousands of metres. Fashion has to use everything . . . it must look forward, backward, inward, outward . . . it cannot resist anything, and crochet is a part of fashion’s past, present, and future, and always will be.

IC: Do you think it will persist beyond the trends of the last few seasons?

LM: Absolutely, it may wane for a while in the future, but it is—when used properly—a beautiful and very sexy fashion style.

IC: How many crocheters were involved in handstitching your collection?

LM: Believe it or not, all of the work was produced by one person—my mother! She is an extraordinary craftsperson. She has been crocheting for so many years, she can do it blindfolded . . . but her work, detail are phenomenal.

IC: Did you provide her with written patterns to work from? If not, how did you communicate your specifications to her?

LM: I have worked for the last 14+ years with my mother. First in her atelier and then on my various collections from university to Project Runway Canada. We communicate very intuitively: I show her and/or draw for her what I want her to do, and she just does it! It’s very rare that she doesn’t understand me, and, on those occasions, we just start over. It’s a great partnership!

IC: Do you plan to use crochet in future collections, or was this a one-time feature?

LM: I have used crochet for my last two collections, and it will be in my Fall/Winter 2008/2009 collection as well, perhaps not quite as prominently as in the Project Runway Canada Spring collection . . . but absolutely. I will include crochet whenever/wherever it furthers my design vision.

IC: What projects are you currently working on?

LM: I have finished my Fall/Winter 2008/2009 collection, and I am preparing for L’Oreal Fashion Week. It’s a very big day in any designer’s career. As well, I am working with my business partner and various sales reps to sell this collection across Canada and the world. This is my first fully professional and salable collection, and the response so far has been fantastic. Otherwise, I am doing a lot of charitable events, costumes for some big gala shows this spring and fall, as well as custom orders for different clients. I’m always sketching, designing, thinking of the next collection . . . which isn’t so far away!

IC: If there’s anything I didn’t ask you about that you’d like us to know, please tell me.

LM: I am a big fan of handcrafts and old-world elements and incorporating them into high fashion. As long as they are beautiful and make the women who wear my clothes look and feel beautiful, then I’m interested (especially if [the crafts] are forgotten or neglected). I like to keep in touch with both my own and fashion’s historical roots.

To see Lucian Matis’s latest designs, see www.lucianmatis.com.