Betrayal- the best in Montreal Fashion?

These are my notes on the clothes and other things in each scene of the Seditionaire production of Pinter’s Betrayal. To read a review of the play, including some thoughts on the collaboration informed by an after-show interview with the Artistic Director of Seditionaire, Lita Trisierra, please check this out.

ReGen with Pearls Before Swine -
Witty flirt’s wearing a black flashy cravat. Social talk at the end of an affair in a seamed, reconstructed vintage wool men’s jacket. The pain of remembering and of the other person misremembering. Collections of glasses white cemented to blocks of wood. ReGen’s wrist to arm pulls leave the actor’s hands free, eloquent and vulnerable and at the top they point like black petals on the outsides of her arms. I think- this is the perfect funeral dress- so elegant, so beautiful you would feel untouchable and the pockets are deep enough to hide whole kleenex boxes and worry beads or an mp3 player. Small tasteful odd coloured pearls. At the end someone yells “bra-vo” in what sounds like a send up of catwalk cheering.
www.re-gen.net
www.pearlsbeforeswine.ca

Soku and Pearls Before Swine -
Red velvet with patterned red trim. Pressed on leather chevrons? Slightly bell bottomed pants? Matching red trim- maybe braiding? Why does this outfit make me feel dubious? The other jacket’s a future/past military reference with patterned rivets and what looks like padded shoulders. The pearls are on corsages that look like salvaged, brightened silver pocket watches; or like big lockets, and the contrast with the slightly sci fi and contradictory outfits is jarring but I like clothing choices that make me smile. Things are falling backstage. At the end the same voice drawls “bra-fucking-vo” and most people laugh but he doesn’t continue his joke through the next 7 scenes, thankfully.
www.soku.ca

Hastings and Main -
The beige gold silk dress vulnerable-izes Emma. And it’s an astoundingly beautiful piece with a frilly short bustle type thing in the same fabric in the back, like a backwards apron. Hastings and Main always has interesting draping and body shapes. When I interview Clayton from complexgeometries about whether designers made new pieces for their scenes, or pulled from this year’s collection he tells me that it worked differently for everyone, that he himself made one new piece and pulled some, and that Maryanne of Hastings and Main made some things for the play that’s she’s going to use for her collection this season. The other actor is wearing short pants and a renaissance-vibe jacket, which I think is what’s in the program as “Julie Clark vintage”.
www.hastingsandmainclothing.com

Fidel and Lydia Lukidis -
Lita tells me after the show that the designer from Fidel wanted her to come out in something fully scandalous and over the top for her entrance in this scene. Her character, Emma, comes out from putting her children to sleep to have a drink with her husband and his best friend, her lover. She enters wearing white shiny mini shorts and a midrif exposing black top with white tie. The top I find ugly, but that’s maybe because I had bad experiences with that sheer material as a child… think combined with shoulder pads…and a mini skirt… playing soccer for gym class. Anyway- the sexy Fidel joke does work, we laugh. Emma is totally throwing herself at her husband’s friend in this scene and it’s embarrassing and funny and awful, and well in keeping with the tortured social maneuverings in the play. She wears a single long wide weblike earring which is cool, and the men wear modern manly things which make them look simultaneously more handsome and more non-descript.
www.fidelclothing.com
www.lydialukidis.com

complexgeometries and Pearls Before Swine -
Matching aqua dye on the mens asymetrical drape tshirt and the womens robe (which was designed specifically for this show) make the scene visually unified, and the fact that they look like a perfect happy couple on vacation makes the fact that he knows about her affair, and is playing with her in a way that is mostly painful to him with regards to what exactly he might know, more sad. Drapy, casual, sexy sweaty gorgeous-Italian-day type tshirt. She’s bitter and secretive and he regrets long letters he shared with his friend before he met her when they were “bright young men and the best of friends” and it’s said like spitting. He has a lovely sad face, and her robe scoops up sexily in the back, coming into two points in the front, which I only notice as she gets up to walk away. Wearing this would make you feel clean and beautiful, even if inside you knew you were hurting people you loved.
www.complexgeometries.com

Renata Morales, Kamkyl -
Animated and almost shiny jacket on her- regular man clothes on him. Double row of buttons on the jacket, slightly off center- see it more clearly here, on the Morales flickr pool. The jacket is a picture of our “mountain,” little Mount Royal, I realize, with the little girl and the cross on the hill repeating over and over again. It’s beautiful beautiful beautiful, but doesn’t fully suit her character at first glance, except that in this scene she’s like a little girl getting thrown into the air at a party, having a dangerously great time. And he’s all in his ivy league wear, with the brown jacket and the shirt of oxford blue, looking dashing and untrustworthy.
www.renatamorales.com
www.kamkyl.com

Travis Taddeo, Lydia Lukidis -
Slashed long sleeve white tshirt with white undershirt- and what looks like a brown jumper on Jerry, wrestling style, reveals his whole chest. The slashed up shirt is the piece I’m most dubious about, but it does convey rich guys getting into impractical designer sports gear to sit and have drinks and end up not playing squash. I get to speak to Travis Taddeo a bit after the show and he’s delighted by the difference in the acting between the reading he attended and a live performance. Asked if he liked watching the clothes he says he sort of hates not being in control- so much is in the hands of the dressers back stage. Apparently he was cringing during this scene because one character’s fly was undone, but from where I sat I didn’t notice. I was mostly interested in the giant spider necklace which suits the waitor character to a T, I swear. Travis Taddeo is young, still a student, and he usually designs for women, doing just a few pieces for men, not a full collection. He doesn’t even have a website yet! Scandalous! (kidding).
www.lydialukidis.com

Kuskalla and Lydia Lukidis -
Comfy Kuskalla sweaters seem odd after all the hard edges between these people, but the sheet of silver raining down between the periwinkle fuzz is lovely with it’s amber drops inside, catching the light. Again the black skirt with the bright trim- which echoes the brightly coloured patching work you see from Panama- is nice, but a bit odd in this context. Still, the years are jumping forwards and back, and if you held pictures of my outfits from different points in time up next to each other you’d have similar cause to question my costume designer. Kuskalla is, in part, designed by the artistic director of Betrayal and it’s female lead- Lita Tresierra. The line is done in partnership with Tenma Fruitman.
www.kuskalla.com

Denis Gagnon, Yso, Lukidis -
Yellow dress with the raw waistline ruching, and the empty back looks beautiful with the gold, incomplete, upside down tree designed by Lydia Lukidis. The actress looks bright and delicate, like the perfect fashionable host, and in this first electric moment of her affair, the last moment in the play, her soon to be lover is drunk and terribly handsome in his dangling tie and perfectly fitted vest. The scoop on his vest matches the scoop on the back of her husband’s jacket, when he comes in, and they seem cut from the same cloth. Handsome, smart witty, and in her life, in this moment, interchangeable. What a sad thing to be. But if you’re going to be a rich sad thing, you should probably do it in Denis Gagnon. You might as well look supa fly.
www.denisgagnon.ca
www.phay.ca