Wilson Robertson Design
Written by Nicole LaChance, for Western Canada Fashion Week
To say that the design team of Wilson Robertson is a breath of fresh air would sound cliché; however, in a world congested by unisex t-shirts and spare, monochrome dressing, they really and truly breathe life into the Edmonton clothing scene.
Greg Wilson and Emilie Manon Robertson are an unlikely pair, and if you were to meet them in their full time professional capacities, as creative and expressive as their personalities are, one would never guess that they are the duo behind a colourful and innovative local couture line. By day, Greg is a professional engineer, doing civil architectural, structural and restoration engineering work. Emilie has just completed her Masters’ Degree in Surgical Design & Simulation from the University of Alberta, and is entering her fifth year as a Plastic Surgery Resident.
Greg and Emilie first met in 2001, swimming in the Keyano program at Edmonton’s Strathcona High School. Luckily for the fashion world, they reconnected in 2012 to come together and create the exciting line of Wilson Robertson Designs. The two have been the best of friends ever since.
It all began for Greg in Laramie, Wyoming, where he attended university. He was not emotionally connecting with his engineering program, and wanted to quit and move to New York to attend Parsons School of Design. However, he persevered and completed his engineering degree. What got him through it was that he taught himself to sew. This became his passion and his escape. He got his first dress form, and with that he made a see-through blush coloured dress for Emilie. She smiles when she recalls that she wore that dress, Greg’s first piece, to Industry Night at the Art Gallery of Alberta. For Emilie, she says that she had to learn to sew for practical reasons, because she is a total shopaholic. She learned about sewing from Greg, and when it comes to sizing and designing, they are both completely self-taught.
When I ask what drew them to fashion design, their response is that they are both trained to think conceptually in their respective careers. They have to see things in three-dimensional shapes, and this has enabled them to take their day to day career knowledge and transpose it into the skill of birthing a design, from the image in their minds, to the pattern on the page, and eventually to choosing fabrics, cutting, and constructing the garments.
The only equipment in their atelier consists of two sewing machines. For the past two years, the duo have been working and tinkering, and ultimately perfecting, their launch collection. It was to be shown on the runway at Western Canadian Fashion Week (WCFW) in March 2020. Due to the pandemic, WCFW was cancelled, and there is still no indication of when it will resume. Nonetheless, they persevere. Notwithstanding their busy work schedules, they meet often to work on their clothing line. During these meetings, they assign each other tasks, compare progress, choose new fabrics, and try and put their new ideas to paper.
Also worth mentioning is that apart from their full time career day jobs, each of them is also working on their own separate fashion lines. Emilie Manon Design sells scrub caps and masks to her friends and colleagues at the hospital, and Greg is involved in a men’s clothing line prototype, Bishop VC.
When asked to describe their style, their motivation, where they ultimately want Wilson Robertson Designs to land, their response is unexpected. Their style is conceptual, irreverent, impractical and “of the moment.” They take their collections seriously, but their end goal is not commercial. Rather, their aim is to create wearable art, a form of self-expression, be that joy, confusion, frustration or conviction. The original plan was to use their runway exposure at WCFW to sell their collection. They have only produced one item of each piece, and their clothes are generally meant to be one size fits all, with the aesthetic being oversized, to allow for a range of different body types to wear their creations. Mass production is not the goal.
They would eventually like for their clients to simply buy the pieces they like right after watching them come down the runway. Theirs is a physical expression of emotion. The clothes people wear are one way to show the world how they are feeling, what they are thinking, what they believe and who they are. Greg and Emilie describe their clothing in terms of artful self-expression, no different from the story that artwork tells when it is on display in your home. In this case, their art is to be displayed on your body. Their price range is $50-$200 pieces, and their target age for clients would be people in their 20s and 30s. For now, clients can special order couture pieces through Instagram or, eventually, at WCFW after the show.
Their 2020 collection, destined for WCFW, was technically a spring/summer collection for women. For Emilie, the inspiration was to design pieces that she would want to wear. Their fabric choices are somewhat impractical for summer in terms of weight, but the shapes and colours definitely have a warm weather vibe. Think thick tartan wool as a base, which establishes the main colour scheme of deep electric purple and vibrant orange, interspersed with white. The counterpart to the tartan wool, which provides depth to anchor the collection, is a scuba fabric, adding dimension and pushing their pieces into the future. The accents of neon keep it young and fresh. All pieces are one of a kind; they are accessible, wearable couture.
Though their personal styles are divergent – Emilie prefers oversized, voluminous and simple, whereas Greg loves to sew fitted, tailored pieces – the end result of this collection is a convergence of their personal styles resulting in an innovative combination of colour, texture and shape. They define “fashion” not so much as a practical thing, as a way of expression. Emilie states that if you can design what you want and wear it, you can make yourself feel pretty. To Greg, fashion is a form of self-expression, the easiest way to tell someone about yourself. As designers, knowing the difficulty of making garments, when they see a beautifully-tailored piece, they can appreciate the difficulty of creating that piece, and it becomes more meaningful.
This design team is down to earth with their shopping. They buy all their fabrics at Marshall Fabrics on Argyll Road in Edmonton. Emilie takes pride in making new things out of old things. She likes to repurpose, and is accidentally eco-conscious in this regard. She recalls having made a collage sweater out of old t-shirts. Greg also thinks about sustainability, in terms of the amount of waste created when cutting fabric. For them, instead of throwing fabric remnants away, they will, for example, make a bra out of the scraps of the scuba fabric, or make a belt out of the scraps of the tartan wool. They maximize the fabric that they buy, and in this way their designs are sustainable.
Greg is inspired by the late designer Alexander McQueen, and he gets emotional describing a documentary wherein McQueen was just free cutting a coat, and the result was brilliant. He and Emilie do not currently use technology or computer programs to assist them with pattern-making. However, they would consider pattern-making software in the future to assist them with sizing. Their main goals for their pieces right now are achieving style and making pieces that look cute. In their words, the collection just needs to last down the runway. At this point, they are designing their collections to produce a strong visual impact on the runway.
Greg describes the art of fashion design as being an old-school thing, and this is what he especially loves and appreciates about it. He takes the position that everyone should learn to swim, and everyone should learn to sew. When a person knows how to sew a garment, this will enable them to appreciate the work that goes into making quality clothes. Although the practicality of having a full-scale, mass produced brand is beyond their capability, they have a very strong, independent sense of style, which works well for a series of micro collections. Both Greg and Emilie are strong-willed people, and together they create a unique sort of alchemy. Their combined perspective is cool and different, and their collection is striking.
Wilson Robertson Designs has already designed their complete next collection. Although devastated when WCFW was cancelled, they will continue to make collections that are wearable by models on the runway. They would love to show a collection in every fashion week, perhaps next year at Vancouver Fashion Week. They love when photographers use their pieces for editorial shoots, because this is a way for their art to reach an audience. Greg and Emilie are naturally trend-setters, and their ideas are inspired. They just sit and think, looking at the fabrics and imagining their collection from there. A preview of their next collection? It’s going to look like it should be worn by a very powerful and chic archaeologist. Fantastic! We look forward to that.