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PERFECT FIT HelenJean’s Tina dress in Vanilla.
s 3 Yearow! In A R
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Up-and-coming North Shore designer takes away the dreaded number
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HelenJean dresses use ‘intention tags’ with
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inspiring words instead of standardized sizes MICHAELA GARSTIN S TA F F R E P O RT E R
“W
hat the hell, I’m that size?” they think in the change room, trying on one unlucky dress after another.
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Nothing seems to fit properly — their hips are too big, legs too short, boobs too small. Cringing, they inspect the number on the tag. “If I was a size smaller, it would look so much better,” they say to themselves in the mirror, dreading what they see in the reflection. After these routine shopping sprees became more like therapy sessions, Katie Jeanes was fed up. “This is dumb. My friends are beautiful,” she said, deciding it was time to put the blame on the clothes, not on the bodies. She started her own dress line — HelenJean, named after her “strong, amazing” grandmothers — where each dress is custom-made to fit the wearer. No more pinning on tiny sample sizes in front of dozens of people at a retail store. Instead of focusing on the number looming on the tag, her dresses have “intention tags” with word like “chic,” “strong” and “really, really good looking.” Having a difficult time finding clothes to suit her body, Jeanes, who grew up in North Vancouver and went to Sutherland secondary, was finally satisfied after visiting a tailor in Bali who designed a perfect-fitting, custom-made suit. “It was the first time I had clothes that really fit me.” But back home in B.C. she could only find custom options for men, such as Indochino and J. Hilburn, which design made-to-order suits. So she decided to have each HelenJean dress made in Bali by two village-owned tailoring cooperatives that provide jobs for both men and women. When a dress is ordered, the measurements are sent to Bali, people in the villages source fabric, create a custom pattern, sew the dress and send it back to Jeanes for final inspection. A $50 tailoring credit is included just in case it’s not a perfect fit. “I grew up loving fashion but not really knowing how I fit in,” says Jeanes, who graduated from UBC with a kinesiology degree. “Kinesiology, not much to do with what I’m doing now, but it makes me really good at taking measurements,” says the 25-year-old with a laugh. She held her first trunk show in September to test the concept on a small group of women. After this initial success she started taking orders online as well. Even though her models online would be considered relatively skinny to average, Jeanes says the dresses are perfect for anyone because they can be custom-made in literally any size. The spring/summer collection launched in May, debuting another six dresses. The Fall 2013 collection is scheduled to show on Aug. 15. The dresses retail for $197 at trunk shows and online, helenjean.com. Jeanes is now working on a campaign to grow HelenJean across Canada and the U.S.. Money raised will go towards pattern making, sample sewing, design tools, website development and other costs. Incentives start at contributions of $10 (desktop wallpaper), to $50 (HelenJean scarf), to $150 (any dress at 25 per cent off) and up. Visit the “blog” section of helenjean.com for more information.