Beautiful amazing Anna.  You will be a momma soon.  You will be in love.  You will be afraid.  You will be powerful.  You will be you.  You are amazing Anna and you will be a great mom.

This is for you in anticipation of all the fun you will have rediscovering everyday things through the eyes of your child.

Your life is your most powerful art.  See you at the boutique.

erin

Fly away with a feather print dress from Katrin Leblond.

Your life is your most powerful art.  See you at the boutique.

erin

The artist expresses a distilled idea culled from the pulsing, flowing, churning well of our collective experience and reflections.

Our shared experiences lead the artists of our communities to reflect on common themes in a kaleidoscope of variations providing interesting parallels.

I find it so much more interesting to dress in many artists than to simply build my whole out fit from one designer.  That is why I choose to offer over 75 different designers in the store.  Sure its more work, but its worth it.

I try and find artist who communicate an interesting dialogue  with their own work and that of  Katrin’s.  I love finding great outfits among the offerings of so many different artists.  I love how each outfit created can belong entirely to the person who is wearing it in part because the combination they have selected is theirs alone.

When you buy from within your community you are already part of the art at its inception.  The art belongs in part to you and you are part of  art, the artist, and the community.  The  reach of the communal net begins at home and extends out around the wold.

At boutique Katrin Leblond that means beginning with Kat’s creations and then looking at what is creatively being generated in her immediate neighborhood:  The Plateau, and then looking at the context of that in the greater Montreal area, and then further out in Quebec, and then in Ontario, and the Maritimes, and then the rest of Canada, and then further still, till you are culling a bit from the USA, and a bit from Serbia, or Mexico, or Thailand,or… .  It’s like a fashion rock being thrown into a pond of design ideas.  The biggest splash is at the center and the ripples get lighter and lighter as they move away from the center but they still travel out quieter and quieter as they go across the whole lake.

It’s about dressing yourself while answering the question  “What are you part of?”

Don’t forget…..

Your life is your most powerful art.  See you at the boutique.

erin

The store is committed to local.  What does that mean for the store.    How Boutique Katrin Leblond expresses local.

It’s cool to know that there is an artist half way around the world sharing an interest in similar visual themes to a collection that Kat is working on here in Montreal.  There is all these great Montreal artists of course we are going to sell their stuff.

It’s not about doing it all.  It is about doing what you can.

The world is vulnerable and we can protect it by being conscious of our choices each day.  Plastic for everything all the time is not a right.  It is a luxury, and a choice, that costs us all dearly.  Excessive packaging is really easy to give up.   Giving it up is an immediate improvement in our quality of life.

If the bag is really important to you buy one that you can use again.

Below are a few quotes I cut and pasted from the net.

Message in a Bottle

Seabirds are starving with bellies full of trash. Fur seals in New Zealand poop shards of yellow and blue. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is twice the size of Texas. Now the bad news: Plastic never goes away, and scientists are finding that it absorbs toxins with spongelike efficiency. The fix? Cut it off at the source.

By David Ferris

” the Garbage Patch as two to three times the size of Texas, but in fact it might be far larger–as much as 5 million square miles, or one and a half times the size of the United States. Sailors encounter it within 500 miles of the California coast and 200 miles off Japan.”

Katrin’s tote bags are available for you to take home your treasures.  They are sold for $3.  You are welcome and even encouraged to bring your own bags from home in anticipation of the beautiful fashion harvest you will fill them with.

Your life is your most powerful art.  See you at the boutique.

erin

Fabric.  Art, that is then used to make more art, that is then used in the art that is your life.  High quality 100% cotton.  This is luxurious, high thread count, cotton.   We love this print by Kaffe Fassette.  Kat’s team made it into a “cerise” dress (that means “cherry”  in french), a skirt, bedding and more…. available in the store.

I personally can’t wait for it to come in as throw pillows.  I really want one for my bed that is already dressed in various Katrin Leblond bedding mix and matches.

It reminds me of a kaleidoscope, mandalas, Van Gogh’s Starry Night swirls,  Klimt, Toller Cranston’s costume details in his paintings of the nutcracker, summer, fall, arts and crafts, the universe, gypsy magic, and the bindis on my daughter’s custom embellished bicycle that she loves and I Love, LOVE, LOOOOOOOOOVE.

Bindis are normally used for ceremonially decorating the faces of women and girls all over south Asia including Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Indian.  They are kind of like tattoo stickers.  They come in all different shapes, sizes and colours.  The ones on Aya’s bicycle are covered in rhinestones.

I have to brag.   I thought I was a genius when I came up with the idea of lacquering bindis onto her bike.

I loved fitting the bindis onto the shapes of the bike frame.  I loved finding a place for them that  seemed like they were always meant to be there.

Try and find the bits of broken disco ball.

Peeka boo! I see you!

Dring!  Dring!

The image on the bell is Ganesh the Hindu elephant god of abundance. Success!  Good fortune! This cheerful safety accessory for your two wheeled vehicle  is made by a local Montreal artist, Glen, that crazy Mile end metal sculpture artist, responsible for the sculpture park near the train tracks.  You can get his bells at the used sports equipment store on Bernard between Parc and Saint Urbain.

The seat is covered in swimwear fabric, of course!   Kat helped to hand stitch.  Swimwear:  Stretchy so it fits snug and dries fast when it rains.  Cover a bike seat for a small person you know with one of the swim suits they have just out grown.  A few whip stitches is all it takes!

We made this bike from a street side reject with a sign on it that said “If you want it, you can have it”.  My daughter and a friend cleaned it up and she rode it for a while till she complained about the rust.

What colour would you like it to be? I asked.

“Gold” she said to my surprise.

The end result is covered in bindis, spray painted gold, lacquered with nail polish, sparkles and more spray laquer.

I am very proud of this little art project and Aya and I had a really lot of fun doing it.  The basket and handle bar fringe are from Canadian Tire.

Yeah for bikes!  Pedal freely forward.  Free from gas prices.  Free from constant repair costs.  Free from the emissions guilt.  Float on two wheels.  Yeah!  Bikes!  Don’t forget your helmet!

I bike in my cerise dress on my own bike, along side Aya, all the time.

Kat wears the cerise dress available in store. Photo by Barry Maccleod.

Your life is your most powerful art.  See you at the boutique.

Erin.

Come fall down the rabbit hole…

This is Wonderland…

Let your imagination soar…

Let me tell you a story.

I had been walking for days. Lost. Alone. Afraid…
My feet were screaming, begging for rest, but I could not stop.  I was fearful of the emptiness.  If I kept going, maybe nothing could get me.  Tears would no longer flow, tapped out.

I had stopped screaming for help two moons ago.  I knew no one could hear me.  I was in a world unknown to me.

I climbed up. up. up.  Finally, the top of the mountain.  The sun shone so bright.  So yellow.  How could that be?  It was the dead of night.  I got closer. closer. closer.  It wasn’t the sun.  It was a horse.  A great horse.  Yellow.  Wings.  I stopped for the first time in a long time.  That was it.  I was what I feared the most.  Crazy.

He was standing still.  Behind him was a wall of rocks.  Some of them as colorful and bright as he, others dull and lifeless as I felt.

I approached the horse.  He looked at me and smiled.  Sit, rest. He said.  I have riddle for you.

I sat.

In the dark I am found, without being fetched.  In the day I am lost, without being stolen.  What am I?

I thought.  I did not know the answer.  I gave up.

The stars. he said.

Stars. I hadn’t looked up at the stars since I was lost.  I did so now. Their bright twinkling bodies gave me comfort.  I hadn’t been alone this whole time.  Those little tricksters had been up there the whole time.  Laughing.  Joking. Watching out for me.  I found the brightest one I could off in the distance.  He was different.  He was warmth.  He wasn’t a star.  He was a town.  I started to run.  run.  run.

I awoke to the sun in my face.  The real sun.  I was lying on a street, people surrounding me.  They took me to a pub.  Someone bought me a drink and asked me for my tale.  I spoke of my days wandering.  I hesitated.  I told them of the magnificent horse.  I expected laughs.  The people looked at me knowingly.

There is a story, about a great horse, yellow as the sun,  with spectacular wings.  Behind him stands a wall.  For every lost soul he guides home, one rock on that wall…turns a wonderful color.

Tell me a story….

(Photo in this post is one Kat pulled from the internet.)

I am a spiritual person.  I am a political person.

I believe that I am empowered to make ethical decisions that are beneficial for my community by the money I spend as an entrepreneur .  I believe that as an artist, it is my duty to create beauty for my customers to enjoy.  I believe that women deserve to be treated like goddesses entering a temple when they come in to my boutique.  They are to be served, taken care of, draped in fabric and made to feel beautiful.   I believe this from the bottom of my heart.

I have always been politically active and I have always been crafty.  There were certain points in my life where I felt guilty and pained because “just making pretty things” was not saving the planet.  Now that I am running an ecological and local manufacturing business that serves and adores women, I feel better.  I have merged my environmental activist with my feminist and with my local economist in a way that allows me to keep being a creative human being.

And here is Linda Evangelista, our Montreal-born International Fashion Icon, merging her political views that something is wrong in the world and someone should be held accountable with her love of the Madonna.  She got to play a living Madonna in a Religious procession.  I have traveled to Antigua in Guatemala to see these processions.  They walk the streets playing sad brass band music all the while carrying statues and crying for the death of Jesus.  They walk for 12-13 hours.  My main reason for traveling there was to see the “carpets” that the locals make from coloured saw dust and flowers.  The carpets are made in the street prior to the passing of the procession.  When the procession passes, the carpet gets trampled.  It was incredibly beautiful.  (This is reminding me that I should do a post about those carpets.)

I am unusually attracted the the iconography of the Madonna even though I was not raised in any form of Christianity.  To me the Madonna is the “mother”, gaia, goddess … and those are all great things.  It represents female divinity, something each woman carries within herself.

I love religious art.  I love folk art.  I love making pretty things.

It can take quite a while in life’s journey to settle into being who you truly are and not who you wish you were.

It is good to just know deep down to our toes that what we have that really has value is our friends, our family, the world around us that we love.  Go ahead take away the car, the house, the long list of material possessions.   Go ahead!  What I want is to feel safe and loved and be able to share that with my daughter and the world.

Friends make us strong.  They offer us the best embrace to fall into when life gets tough.   There for you when things go wrong.   They empower us to take more risks and listen to our selves more.

Thanks to all my good friends that I have had over the years that made me feel stronger about myself.   It wasn’t always easy but I am who I am today in part because of you and you will always be with me in everything I do.  And even if  you’re  far away  you are still my heart.

There you are.   You know me.  I know you.  I am me and you are you.  You are part of me.  When I grow more into myself you are happy for me.   When you grow more into yourself  I am happy for you. I love how you change and how you stay the same.  I am lucky to know you.  Thank you for sharing everything you do.

Thanks for all the fun we have together!

See you at the boutique.

Erin.

Sometimes things don’t all go as planned.

Sometimes a great idea turns out to need a lot of tweaking.

A sting.

A zing.

A bit of a sour thing.

Sometimes a bit of sour helps you appreciate the sweetness that comes along next.

all photos by erin except love sculpture is by tom brosnahan

I made these shirts because YES it is this simple and it has been said before:  the law is LOVE!  I have built my small business around this simple word.  If we make it with love … women will love it… and it will sell.  The surprise was how much men love it too.  They love the store.  They love the colours.  They get it.  They like to see their ladies dressing up and feeling pretty.  The attraction is natural. The girlier I make the clothing, the more men love it.  Hurray for LOVE!

This is the love sculpture by pop artist Robert Indiana

We have one in the old port now and there are many around the world.  Everyone gets it.

Loving our bodies has to stop being optional.  Just buckle down and LOVE your BODY!  Lie in the sun and feel the sun loving your naked body.  Lie on a blanket in the grass and feel it…feel the earth beneath you.  The earth loves your body.  Swim in a river and just take a second to feel the cold water againts your skin.  It is not judging you.  It loves you and caresses you and cleanses you.

I love my cellulite!

I love my double hips!

I love my small breasts!

I love my ….

I invite you to claim love for those parts that have been hard to love in the comment section of this post.

julie andrews in the sound of music

I love the sound of music.   I love Julie Andrews in the movie.  I love that the movie hammers home the idea that kids need to be respected and that they will  love you forever if you love them, listen to them, have fun with them and sing and dance.  And that discipline can be achieved with playfulness and love easier than with strictness and punishment.  I wish I could always parent like Julie’s character Maria.

this  is a you tube “sound of music” video in a train station in Antrwirp Belgium.   The surprised look on people’s faces is real.  They didn’t know what was comeing.  This is one of my all time favorite videos out there on the web.  This video made a good number of the women on the Katrin Leblond team cry when they fist saw it.  I won’t say who.

The sound of music reminds us to sing and dance every day and anywhere.

Julie Andrew’s sets  style cues with her character in the movie.  She was practical and yet still playful, feminine and fun. The Sound of Music was set in the 1930′s but filmed in 1965.  Here are some 1950′s dresses we love that depart from but still somehow suggest a bit of  frauline  Maria’s style.

It was all about showing off a cinched waist and full skirt.  This style in particular has a bubble hem which adds even more fullness.  It is so blue and fabulous.

This simplicity pattern has a stand up collar, v-neck and tie at the waist wrap skirt with a perfect A-Line that ends just below the knee.

Ahhh... cuffed sleeves! Oh so really red vintage dress!

And NOW the update:  here are some brand new contemporary  dresses that we have in the store.  Express your hip, sleek, professional and oh-so-fashion forward 1950′s flair.  Perfect for the feminine urban working woman.

The Genia dress is made in Toronto.

Exclusively available in Montreal at Boutique Katrin Leblond.   Available in denim and red . $168 sizes 6,8,10,12. Warning these sizes are smaller than their label suggests.

See you at the boutique.

Erin

Nature will never fail you.  When you are sad, angry, happy, rageful…Nature is a place you can take every emotion you have and She will welcome you.  Especially great is really exerting yourself in nature.  Getting sweaty and dirty and hot.  Chopping wood, lifting rocks, shovelling earth.  These activities may not be good for your back, but ladies they are good for the soul!

Last week I saw a mama deer and a baby deer drinking water by the lake.  The baby was jumpy, like a little puppy, hopping around in the mud.

I am a rock collector.  Not shells and not pressed leaves.  Rocks and sometimes they get quite large.  When I am travelling my pockets inevitably fill with stones…and a few of them always make it home with me.

Arts and crafts are another place where I can be myself.  Uninhibited craft therapy.  Remember your tools in your emotional toolkit.  You learned what makes you happy a long time ago.  Playing in piles of leaves and painting with your fingers.  Remember?  Try it again.  See how it feels.

• Ice Cream, gelato, sorbet, frozen yogurt, Popsicles… pick your poison!  As long as it’s cold going down, it is a summer treat you should most definitely not deny yourself on one of summer’s hottest days!

• Catch a flick.  I can’t think of anywhere that blasts AC quite like a movie theatre… so catch up on your summer blockbusters and give yourself a good excuse to sit in a cool theatre for two hours!

• Don’t overeat!  Believe it or not, your body heats up tremendously when trying to metabolize a meal.  Give yourself a break and eat light, taking in more fluids than actual food (think fruits with a lotta juice or even some homemade iced tea).

• Dress like you live in the Caribbean!  Put on a simple cotton or linen dress and nix those heavy long jeans with synthetic blends that will only get you sweating for nothing!  Plus, what looks more beautiful than a summer dress anyways?

• Take a hot bath.  Seriously, I know you probably think I’m nuts… but it works!  You get so heated up bathing that when you get out you feel refreshed and cooled.  Try it and thank me later

• Eat spicy.  Look at some of the hottest countries… most of them have very spicy, exotic recipes as the backbone of their cultural traditions.  Capitalize on it!  By eating dishes that are spicier you are making your body sweat… and when that sweat dries it actually cools you down!

Hope this helps!  Keep in mind that the weather is supposed to keep up like this until Saturday!

Do you have any foolproof tips that work?

xox

It’s Monday morning… the moment everyone’s clocks set back and the possibilities of a whole new week lay ahead.  Everything is fresh…

So before you get lost in the trials and tribulations of your day, why don’t you just take a moment to think straight and let at least one person know how much they mean to you!

It can be through the telephone, through a love note or simply through a nice gesture… anything to brighten their day and let them know that you have their back !

It’s easy to put people on our “to do” lists or schedule them into our days itinerary, but the real love comes from someone knowing that you went out of your way to show some love.

So happy Monday to you all, and I challenge you to do one good “friend deed” today in whatever form may hit you!

Spread the love!

xox

Happiness can sometimes be hard to come by… life has a way of dragging us through the ringer at moments!  The secret of the successful though, I have learned, is to consistently and always keep your eye on the prize!  Always think big, never let your dreams outta sight, and keep working hard towards your end goal!

Here are a few of my favorite mantra’s that mentally free me during times of hardship and transform the ordinary days into extraordinary ones .

• Love yourself.  By love yourself, I really mean WORSHIP yourself.  I really don’t have any clue how anyone gets anything done in life while they consistently go on about insecurities and doubts.  Stop working against your potential for greatness, allow yourself luxuries and all the love the world has to offer!

• Travel.  Be it to the grocery store or China, sometimes a change of scenery is just what the doctor ordered.

• Surround yourself by amazing people.  People you aspire to be, people who inspire you and who support everything you are in this world!  Never imagine people being better than you – if you think of yourself as the best you will become it!  Toxic people in your life need to be flushed, so stop hesitating and allowing them to poison your positivity!

• Spoil yourself.  I know it’s cheesy because of all the cosmetics companies sport this as their advertising headers, but you know what – they’re on to something!  Allow yourself the little extra’s and know your worth (now realistically multiply what you think it is by 1000 – that’s what your REAL worth is).  Women are made to think of others first – realize that you cannot spoil others without spoiling yourself first!

• Set your feelings free.  Be it anger, fear, happiness or excitement – let it go!  Put emotions into actions and allow yourself to move on to bigger and better things via creativity and experiences!  The moment you realize you are an entity who owns their emotions and not the other way around, is the moment you win.

• Listen to music.  So many more times than not there is someone out there who has been in the same rough spot as you.  Inspiration comes in so many forms, but music has the ability to feel like a good friend offering up the greatest advice.  Soak up a soothing melody and let someone else’s experience get you through the toughest times .

• Take care of your body.  Adorn it with lush fabrics, exotic colors and precious materials… be a goddess and feel like one!  Feed your mind via books and philosophies, nourish your body with clean foods and rest your soul with peace and quiet.  Rest and relaxation is the new luxury – true proof that some of the best things in life are free!

• Be creative.  Paint, write, construct, solve… whatever side of the brain proves to be your strongest, use it to your advantage and indulge in the luxury of seeing something materialize from your own two hands.  There is nothing more rewarding than being able to add your perspective of beauty to the universe.

• Do something that scares you.  You have no idea how freeing it is to test yourself and succeed at conquering your fears.  It is like a breath of fresh air!  In my experience the things I am most scared of end up becoming the things I come to call my faves.

• Believe.  Doesn’t have to be in God.  Doesn’t have to be in fate or destiny.  Believe in something you feel strongly for… be it your cat, car, neighbor or politics… being able to exercise your love for something and stand up for it without question adds to the intrigue of your personality and gives you a loyal edge.

Having said all of that… don’t you just love these gorgeous organza inspired prints?

xox