ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½

Skip to main content

Meet the trio bringing you the first St. John's Fashion Week

Share

A burst of creative energy has focused in St. John's as the city's first-ever fashion week heads towards weekend events.

So far, the program has sold out every ticketed event, impressing even the co-creators Roger Maunder, David Howells and Jessica Brown.

"People are hungry for it and they want to see it, so we're just giving them what they want in a lot of ways," said Maunder.

Maunder said the trio, who are media professionals, were working together earlier this year on a separate film project when the idea formed for a fashion week of their own. Planning ballooned from there.

"My background is in film and television production, and I’ve actually done a lot of travelling to different cities like Toronto and Los Angeles and seeing… the fashion events and just being inspired by that," said Brown. "And thinking, 'why can’t we do something like that at home?'"

Each of the co-creators are bringing significant experience and expertise with them, which has already shown in the slick imagery produced for the St. John's Fashion Week.

Maunder, who owns Up Sky Down Films, has decades of experience producing short films and music videos in St. John’s, while Howells is an award-winning photographer who has been tapped to photograph Henry Kissinger, George W. Bush and Robert Mugabe. Brown is the owner of Ujarak Media and won the 2023 Emerging Artist Award from ArtsNL.

Caption: Photographer David Howells has teamed up with Roger Maunder and Jessica Brown to organize the first ever St. John’s Fashion Week. (David Howells)

Alongside the week's events, the group is also producing a behind-the-scenes documentary about what it takes to organize a fashion week in the city.

St. John's is a natural fit, said Howells, who said the city is overflowing with creativity.

"Creative people per square inch here is much higher than anywhere else in the country, I’d argue," he said.

Friday’s show focused on indigenous designers and models. Brown, an Inuk from Nunatsiavut, said indigenous fashion is having a moment, after being mostly outside the high-fashion industry for years.

"The talent is there," she said. "So having a space for them to showcase their designs and share that with the community and the rest of the world, I think it’s really important."

Events continue until Sunday, but the trio thinks they’ve already seen enough proof to bring back the fashion week next year.

"I think we’ve already seen that it’s successful with the sell out shows," said Maunder. "And just the energy and the vibe that’s going on in the city itself right now is like, off the charts."

CTVNews.ca ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½

The province's public security minister said he was "shocked" Thursday amid reports that a body believed to be that of a 14-year-old boy was found this week near a Hells Angels hideout near Quebec City.

B.C.'s police watchdog is investigating the death of a woman who was shot by the RCMP after allegedly barricading herself in a room with a toddler early Thursday morning.

Local Spotlight

They say a dog is a man’s best friend. In the case of Darren Cropper, from Bonfield, Ont., his three-year-old Siberian husky and golden retriever mix named Bear literally saved his life.

Paleontologists from the Royal B.C. Museum have uncovered "a trove of extraordinary fossils" high in the mountains of northern B.C., the museum announced Thursday.

The search for a missing ancient 28-year-old chocolate donkey ended with a tragic discovery Wednesday.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is celebrating an important milestone in the organization's history: 50 years since the first women joined the force.

It's been a whirlwind of joyful events for a northern Ontario couple who just welcomed a baby into their family and won the $70 million Lotto Max jackpot last month.

A Good Samaritan in New Brunswick has replaced a man's stolen bottle cart so he can continue to collect cans and bottles in his Moncton neighbourhood.

David Krumholtz, known for roles like Bernard the Elf in The Santa Clause and physicist Isidor Rabi in Oppenheimer, has spent the latter part of his summer filming horror flick Altar in Winnipeg. He says Winnipeg is the most movie-savvy town he's ever been in.

Edmontonians can count themselves lucky to ever see one tiger salamander, let alone the thousands one local woman says recently descended on her childhood home.

A daytrip to the backcountry turned into a frightening experience for a Vancouver couple this weekend.