Horses Atelier was founded in 2012 by best friends and novelists Claudia Dey and Heidi Sopinka with the philosophy of making pieces based on the values they hold in everyday life – utility, beauty, wildness, and endurance. The label is known for its iconic sillhouettes and feminized workwear — trusted pieces that are artful and easy with an impeccable fit and feel.
Horses works with natural fabrics sourced from family-owned mills in Italy and Japan, and creates custom colours and prints. Everything is sewn a mile from their Toronto studio. Their master seamstress grandmothers inspired in them an old-world attention to detail, and the notion that a timeless piece is both the past and the future. The spare and storied aesthetic of Horses Atelier comes from the designers’ travels across islands, deserts, and Canada’s north.
Profiled in Vogue, worn by Feist, Jerry Hall, and Georgia May Jagger, and featured on HBO’s Girls, their muse is the woman who in dressing herself knows herself.
https://www.horsesatelier.com/pages/about
HORSES
B INSIDER.COM
Canadian writers Heidi Sopinka and Claudia Dey are the talented best friends behind the new collection by Horses Atelier. These wordsmiths, who’ve been inseparable since college, have traded their pens for sewing needles to bring us a truly inspired line. And they already have Miranda Purves, editor of Flare magazine, singing their praises: “They both have impeccable, decisive taste, self-styling genius, can-do fingers, and the work ethic of 16th-century Calvinists.” They both have an eye for detail that results in immaculately made dresses that are timelessly chic and incredibly versatile. This SS2013 will mark the release of their first collection, and by the looks of these dresses, it certainly won’t be their last. We sat down with these lovely writers turned designers to find out what makes them tick.
1. What inspired you to create this collection?
Our first season, SS2013, was inspired by the incandescence of love, along with our own vintage trophies culled from Parisian flea markets, thrift stores in Northern Canada, Moscow markets, and Singapore jumble shops. Our palette is drawn from the natural world: white, black, red, and metals. We have created two custom prints: desert flower (from Death Valley) and vintage flower (1940s Paris). And this Ovid quote: “Everything changes, nothing is lost.”
2. What inspired the name of the collection?
Horses. We love every association and the emotions they generate: velocity, utility, elegance, beauty, wildness, freedom and the queen of punk, Patti Smith.
Atelier. The French word for workshop both evokes our multi-lingual country, the defining hand-made element, and the spirit of enduring tradition. It declares: classic and premium.
3. Who is the woman you are designing for?
She is an accomplished Renaissance woman who lives artfully. She rides her bicycle to work in seven hundred dollar heels. Her days are dynamic; she knows that a dress is the most versatile piece in her wardrobe, and she knows how to style it both high and low with the effortless cool of Parisian chic. She cares about the story behind a garment. She is uninterested in trends, and instead looks for pieces that are timeless, foxy, immaculately made, and of course, flattering. She wants to invest in fine pieces that reflect her singular style. With her eclectic and considered style, she curates her world; she is worthy of a shoot by Todd Selby.
4. What is your number one style rule you live by?
Muccia Prada’s adage that style is a “collage of intuitions.”
5. How are you inspired by street style and the way you see people wear your collection?
We are always collecting clippings of contemporary style icons like Caroline de Maigret and Emmanuelle Alt, and women who are a constant source of inspiration: Kate Moss, Jane Birkin, Francoise Hardy, Isabella Rossellini, and of course, Patti Smith.
We have seen women pair our slip dress with a Martin Margiela pump, top bun and diamond necklace, just as easily as bare feet, an electric guitar and their boyfriend’s beaten-up straw Portis fedora. These interpretations are what inspire us every day.
6. What are five things you are obsessed with right now?
The phases of the moon
Moth wings
Art nouveau book covers
Phat hip hop kicks
Paris, Texas
Horses Atelier is available in The White Space
http://www.b-insider.com/2013/horses-atelier/