Montgomery Blouse by Bruised Peach. Bruised Peach Shop is a Toronto-based line run by Lisette Markiewicz and her mother, Patricia Butler.Supplied
With mounting pressure to slow fashion’s impact on the environment, there’s been a proliferation of sustainable brands that promise to provide a more mindful way to consume clothing and accessories. But as ethical brands such as Reformation, Everlane and Kotn scale up, where can shoppers who value slow – and truly small – fashion look?
A new crop of microbrands suggests that the future of more sustainable closets is rooted in fashion’s past: custom-made pieces produced with a singular wearer in mind. These labels are often the fledgling projects of artists and artisans who have no intention of growing beyond what they can already sew and sell themselves. They focus on one-of-a-kind design and a minimal environmental footprint.
Bruised Peach Shop is a Toronto-based line run by Lisette Markiewicz and her mother, Patricia Butler. Markiewicz, a photographer, found herself out of work at the start of the pandemic and began making clothes to wear. “I have had my weight fluctuate from month to month my whole life, and I’ve always had trouble finding clothes that fit me properly,” she says.
As she developed her designs, Markiewicz would post outfits to her Instagram feed, and soon, friends and followers were asking for their own versions. Working with her mom, a former fashion designer and pattern maker who had retired to Collingwood, Ont., the two began developing designs. “There is a huge hole in this industry for people who have plus size bodies or people who have not typical measurements,” she says.
Generally, Markiewicz and Butler have 10 easily-manipulatable styles highlighted on their Instagram page. Each can be tailored to a customer’s measurements. They stock a few vintage fabrics but most textiles are sourced for individual orders. Excess fabric is used to create small accessories such as collars, head scarves and purses.
“From a sustainability point of view, it’s a really low waste, low-cost business model for making clothing. You’re only making enough to meet orders,” Markiewicz says. “My mom has worked for big brands before, and the idea of looking at unsold clothing on a rack is so stressful to her.”
Brianna Moreno creates one-of-a-kind rings for her eponymous line, also sold through Instagram and online. The Ottawa native, who is an illustrator and comic book artist by day, spent most of her quarantine designing quirky jewellery decorated with clip-on charms and belly bars leftover from the 2000s piercing craze. Moreno releases just a few pieces at a time, and they sell quickly, so she has started collaborating with her clients to create unique small accessories such as mini purses and AirPod cases. “I love the idea of keeping the community really tight knit, so everyone can get something that they really want,” she says.
Gorm, a Toronto line, reimagines vintage garments and fabrics as one-of-a-kind pieces. Designer Bianca Daniela Nachtman sources everything from vintage blazers to bedding, tapestries and curtains at vintage stores and antique markets and transforms them into avant-garde collections released on a semi-seasonal basis. Her most recent line was inspired by the Czechoslovakian fairy tales of her youth.
Nachtman started Gorm as a response to the polluting nature of the textile industry, as well as the storytelling that vintage sourcing offers. “There is such an abundance of vintage fabrics – even just walking through Value Village – that it seemed natural for me to use up that fabric and give it new life,” she says. She recently transformed a Santa suit into a heart shaped purse, vintage bedding into a gown and even sewed old keys onto a blazer. “These pieces were part of someone’s life, and now they live on,” she says.
Many of Nachtman’s pieces are designed as custom performance wear for musicians and drag queens. She also has lots of customers who work in the city’s art scene. “People love the idea that nothing can be replicated,” Nachtman says.
Markiewicz has been surprised by how young many of her Bruised Peach Shop clients are. “By now, millennials have become more familiar with slow fashion, but to see teenagers save their money to support it is really special,” she says. Though there has been an uptick in demand for the designs since the brand launched in late 2020, Markiewicz doesn’t ever imagine expanding. “It’s so unstressful as it is now,” she says.
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