Fashion Blogs

Fashion: Hayley Gibson's vintage, whimsical designs

A vintage prettiness has long reigned amongst the artsy chicks of Montreal and the 2015 spring/summer collection from local companyBirds of North America sums up the look beautifully.

It’s both modern and ’50s reminiscent, nostalgic but strangely current. The brunette in the S/S catalog might be a spirited 20-something artist supporting a friend at her first vernissage or showing up late to meet a date to check out an up-and-coming indie band. Hell, she might well be in the band. The look is perfect for the low-maintenance chick who still appreciates easy-to-wash cotton and natural fibers.

Birds of North America also has a wedding series on the horizon that features five more “casual” designs for open-minded brides. “I don’t know if it’s going to be a success or not,” designer Hayley Gibson says. “We’ll have them in stock in March. But they’re going to be available at a couple of boutiques in Ottawa and Toronto and on the website.”

She is a Victoria-born designer and describes herself as a Value Village rat in her youth, when she liked to pass the time literally taking apart her purchases and putting them back together. After studying fashion at Ryerson, Gibson briefly worked as a costume seamstress for the Montreal ballet. She eventually realized that developing her own clothing line was a better fit for her and so Birds of North America was birthed in 2007, when Gibson was in her late 20s.

Gibson herself is a blue-haired professional and at 35 now established enough to be at ease in an interview; yet she simultaneously evokes an almost teenage uncertainty when she describes her development in recent years, when she at last ventured to wear her own designs in public.

“I used to cry a lot,” she says nonchalantly, as she describes her crippling self-consciousness and marked phobia of cameras. “Like, I really didn’t like having my picture taken!” she says. Now little more than a month into her Twitter account and with a developed presence on Instagram, Gibson has most certainly overcome some of that insecurity.

“Many of the women who are big fans [of the line] post pictures of themselves and they’re so happy. And I was like, ‘I wanna be happy too! I wanna post a picture of myself looking happy in that dress, too!’” she explains. Her Twitter and Instagram are now peppered with photos of her in the studio looking the polar opposite of self-conscious.

Sitting comfortably across from me in the bright white light of January, Gibson strikes me now as a fascinating mixture of existential angst and genuinely happy creativity — an inspired designer who admits she just couldn’t feel at home in her own skin without electric blue hair, but smilingly insists there is a darkness embedded in her designs.

“I don’t want people to think that it [the line] is vapid,” she tells me. “The look book is like ‘Oh, there’s a girl in a dress,’ but I’m very aware of mortality… the design comes from a deeper place. Like this is how I deal with…” Gibson drops her voice to a baritone and ekes out the words with absurdist melodrama, “the horror of existence.” She laughs.

Late spring will see Gibson move to Toronto, where she hopes to gain more nation-wide attention, though her designs will remain available in many boutiques in Montreal, the city that saw her label grow out of infancy.

Though it has many fans, the girlish Birds of North America style may gradually change in the next few years, and Gibson expresses an urge to move into new territory, away from the stubbornly popular and safe 36-inch shoulder-to-hemline dress.

“I really love all the grunge stuff coming back and I wanna get on board with it,” she hints.