Kathryn Bowen: Holding On To Moonlight

Toronto-based fashion designer, Kathryn Bowen, creates luxury garments that combine tradition with modernity. FW18, the label’s second collection, consists of its soon-to-be signature pieces: a mix of new tailored cuts and disassembled-yet-refined outerwear. The collection’s range includes fitted leather blazers, two-piece separating silk trench coats with utilitarian components, laced leather boot covers, and genderless tailoring.

Kathryn Bowen spent several years in London studying fashion design and sequentially worked closely with Yang Li, before returning to Canada where she launched a preview collection of her eponymous label in November 2017.

Now, motivated by her fascination with couture and bespoke tailoring techniques, she is refocusing her attention on lost values in garment construction. As a reaction to the increasing pace of fashion, Kathryn Bowen began working alongside a skilled couture seamstress to learn the craft of traditional handwork and precision that significantly enhances the fabrication, fit, and uniqueness of a garment. A process that involves equal patience as passion and allows for a higher level of impeccable execution.

For the designer’s upcoming SS19 collection, inspiration was drawn from her grandparents’ archived closet consisting of items that seem lost to our generation – housecoats, spats, traditional overcoats and aprons – a collection she admires because these garments have a purpose. Each of these items functions to protect the wardrobe as a whole and, because of this, allows a person to accumulate valuable garments for decades.

With this mindset, Kathryn Bowen wants to establish a brand that reminds us why we are buying the garments in the first place. What is the function of the coat and what occasion is it meant for? The goal is to create conceptual collections that bring back a respect for the garment as an element of the wardrobe, one that has its place in order to preserve its original value and sublimity.