1. 11/18/2015 TOM* Designer Spotlight: LAFAILLE | CanCulture
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DISCOVER CANADIAN ARTS AND CULTURE
AUGUST 29, 2015
The designer, Benjamin Lafaille. Photo taken by Andrea Vacl.
TOM* Designer Spotlight: LAFAILLE

2. 11/18/2015 TOM* Designer Spotlight: LAFAILLE | CanCulture
http://www.canculture.com/2015/08/29/tom-designer-spotlight-lafaille/ 2/5
Montréal designer Benjamin Lafaille isn’t designing for the everyday person. His take on menswear is a testament to
the subculture corners of the Internet. From outlandish and provocative silhouettes to prints lifted from the recesses
of Tumblr and transplanted on t-shirts, LAFAILLE (http://www.lafaille.co/)is a brand that gets people noticed. His
clothing is about showing off: “You don’t wear this to look like the other people, you want to look different.”
The 24-year-old finds Toronto is a bit more refined and business-like than Montréal, so he used his TOM collection
as a attempt to push the Montréal style on this conservative city by showing at TOM. Lafaille designs for people who
don’t care for gender binary dressing and have an interest in art and clothing as an extension of the self. The line is
reminiscent of Jeremy Scott in terms of aesthetic vision and pop culture references.
LAFAILLE is rooted in youth culture born from the Internet and has garnered a cult following, primarily online. He
started out as part of fashion communities and retailers like VFILES and Not Just A Label, gatekeepers of the brands
that are cool but not trying too hard. The youth sitting front row at the show wore leather collars, flimsy slip dresses
with fishnets, Dr. Marten’s and black and yellow fur mini skirts that garnered them strange looks from those around
them, but the label doesn’t appeal to mainstream sensibilities and neither would its supporters.
After getting a degree in industrial design, Lafaille enrolled at the renowned LaSalle College to pursue a career in
fashion design. Now on his fourth collection, his voice is at its most defiant. The SS16 collection centres around the
subject of stress. At the collection’s conception, he knew he wanted to use Velcro as a way to exemplify physical
tension. He played with the relation between tension and stress and the effects that they have on the human psyche.
Distorted music played throughout the presentation and models walked down the runway with electrodes hanging
from their faces and sullen eye makeup. Lafaille wanted the show to evolve from “general stress to anxiety to
depression” and the shift in styling represented the progression. By the end, models were made to look drenched to
signify drowning in one’s own depression.
Inspired by the stresses of the 9 to 5 office grind, Lafaille wove “Bang Head Here” on to shirts and tunics getting the
idea from stickers some office jokesters might have on their desks.
Although dealing with heavy subject matter, there’s quite a bit of humour in the collection. A shirt had a silkscreened
photo of braces superimposed on the front and a stalk of celery on the back, the celery representing the greatest
nuisance to anyone with braces or as Lafaille calls it: “the stress you can’t pull out.”
The highlights of the collection are the extreme cut-outs on many of the pants, leaving little room for imagination;
the jean corset that subverted every menswear expectation and the oversized jacket that closed the show with
detachable letters spelling “LET GO,” urging the audience to let go for a minute and just live.

3. 11/18/2015 TOM* Designer Spotlight: LAFAILLE | CanCulture
http://www.canculture.com/2015/08/29/tom-designer-spotlight-lafaille/ 3/5
Kelsey Adams (mailto:kelsey@canculture.com) is CanCulture’s co-fashion editor. She is currently studying
journalism at Ryerson University.
This article was edited by Linda Nguyen (mailto:linda@canculture.com) & Kevin John Siazon
(mailto:kevin@canculture.com), CanCulture’s co-managing editors.

4. 11/18/2015 TOM* Designer Spotlight: LAFAILLE | CanCulture
http://www.canculture.com/2015/08/29/tom-designer-spotlight-lafaille/ 4/5
by Kelsey Adams
Fashion
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5. 11/18/2015 TOM* Designer Spotlight: LAFAILLE | CanCulture
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