the great xenia benivolski (www.xeniabenivolski.com/) gave me an assignment as part of her upcoming curated fashion show in conjunction with YYZ: MASSIVE SALE collection, which was to create an outfit using clothing borrowed from, or inspired by, my mother. i chose to recreate an original outfit that used to belong to my estranged birthmother (not to be confused with the wonderful adoptive mother that i call my own) circa 1988. this proved to be a rather difficult task, and an overwhelming one, since i have not seen my birthmother for over a decade. however, i managed to put together quite a successful outfit over the course of a couple of weeks with the help of archival photographs from my baby albums (the source photograph to be posted later), as well as from a store called "the public butter" (www.thepublicbutter.com/, billed as 'an artistic vintage boutique in the heart of parkdale, toronto!).

my birthmother, at the time of the outfit's birth, was an avant-garde fashion designer for club monaco (www.clubmonaco.com/). she drew a lot of her design from french new wave film, as well as men's fashions from the 1950s. she was also an advocate of madonna's eccentric outfits from the mid- to late-1980s.

the outfit, which you will see in the video attached, is a mix of five different pieces:

oversized men's tuxedo shirt in mint green (originally worn as shift-style dress),

belt (worn just under the bust), made out of a length of silk rope and woven with pink and gold sateen ribbon and faux-pearls,

caramel-brown, hand-tooled leather shoulder bag,

hand-tooled leather shoes of the same colour.

here's the original event posting for the YYZ show, titled "mom jeans!":

Are all mom Jeans the same? Are all moms the same? Did everyone in the 70s dress the same? Yes the answer is YES. Just kidding of course not, duh!

By wearing vintage and current borrowed from their mothers, in "Mom Jeans" young men and women are going to debunk your "mom clothes" myths. This fashion show will feature the following artists/models: