Adieu Margarita

Last night we bid Margarita Voultsos, 25 from Montreal, Quebec goodbye, Here is the Q+A from this morning with Calgary Fashion.

CF: Tell us a little bit about your fashion background.
MV: I have been making clothes ever since I was 10 years old on my mom’s sewing machine. I was making my own clothes through out high school and getting orders from friends. I got transferred to a technical high school that had a fashion program so from grade 10 to OAC. I got a scholarship to LaSalle College in Montreal. I was skipped into the second year and I graduated and I was wearing some of my clothes in a boutique and a buyer came up to me and asked me where she could purchase my collection and the next week she made a big order and the rest is kind of history. Ever since then I have been selling to boutiques and doing my collection every season.

CF: What is the name of your collection?
MV: Proper Apparel


CF: So tell us more about your label? It’s a street wear label right?
MV: It’s a high end, luxury street label. I call it street couture; I find my clientele buys pieces from me for special events, big club nights, big concerts, and big dinners, stuff like that. Celebratory kind of events, because it’s not just street wear there’s couture details, hand detailing on the pieces, which is mixed kind of with street elements.

CF: What was Iman really like?
MV: Iman… wow she didn’t even seem real, she’s so perfect. She’s quite the diva. She was kind of telling the producers how it went which is pretty bold but she just oozed power.

CF: What was your relationship like with the other contestants, last night we saw you get into a little bit of an incident with Brandon?
MV: As far as I knew, I got along really great with all of the designers, I didn’t know until last night that Brandon took that so far, I was really concerned in the beginning that he was doing something that I was already doing and I didn’t want that to happen but I think he was pretty immature in the way that he started trash talking me and making faces behind my back. I think it’s really unprofessional to be that way but other than that I got along great with all the rest of the designer.

CF: Were you shocked to see the clip of Kim and Brandon, the one where they are outside smoking? Were you shocked to see that?
MV: I was! I was shocked to see everything that Brandon had done; I spoke to him on a very real level. I know that I had my design before he did. I know he didn’t know what he was doing, he told me himself personally and all of a sudden he had something that was incredibly similar to something I was doing almost exactly the same! So my concern was that he knew I was doing that first, I had gone in to the fabric store doing that design, getting exactly enough fabric, diamond strapping and he had bought 7 meters because he had no clue what he was doing. So I just wanted to let him know that, that was my design and that he couldn’t do it. I even went up to him later and apologized for being so harsh, I was in the moment but I thought everything was okay he had changed his design and was acting very nice to my face and then all of a sudden I see last night that he is attacking me behind my back! Which, I thought was really immature, I was surprised that Kim and him were talking about it outside but Kim didn’t really have anything bad to say, she was just like this is going to be an intense challenge and I find they always are when celebrities are involved. I find there is always a crazy twist, someone is going home that you thought wouldn’t be going home in all of the celebrity challenges… she was right!

CF: Did you feel like Brian Bailey was much of a mentor to you?
MV: Brian was really great, him and I got along really really well in the beginning. I feel like he really does have really great advice. He really cares about how well you do; he really listens well and actually takes a step back and gives you a really valuable opinion. It’s funny because everything Brian says behind the scenes is everything the judges say to you on the runway. You should really listen to him he really has a valuable opinion. I kind of miss him!

CF: So your model did the horse trot walk in the first challenge and there were problems with the fabric you picked in the second challenge what went wrong?
MV: In the first challenge I guess we should have done a trial run of her walk but I gave her some pretty strict guidelines, I told her I hate when walks are over exaggerated and she did an over exaggerated walk. We spoke about it a lot after the runway show and I gave her another chance. It worked out fine, I feel like her walk did improve from the first show to the second show, which is great for her.

CF: On the second challenge…
MV: It wasn’t necessarily a problem with the fabric because I did actually finish the dress outside of the show in my studio. It is actually going to be on ET Canada tonight at 7.30 p.m. ET. We are displaying the dress actually finished because, I didn’t have time to actually finish the dress with all the elements that I wanted to see on the dress on the show. I felt like for me and my fans and all the viewers they deserve to see it finished. The problem with the way that the challenge went was we were told we were given one day, I didn’t know if it meant we were given 8 hours, 12 hours, 24 hours so I chose something that was really challenging to actually complete in the amount of time we had. I spent a lot of time on the detailing, the pin tuck detailing… I’m really excited for everyone to see the dress finished because I actually got to add the hand constructed diamond strap, they go up the front and are draped across the back. Everyone that has seen it is super impressed by it, it fits like a glove and it’s actually really stunning. I will be sending it to Elisha as well because the dress was originally designed for her. So I think once everyone sees it tonight and we will be putting it on my website tomorrow, I think they will see it in a completely different light.

CF: Who would you like to see go far in the competition and why?
MV: There’s a couple designers that really stood out to me from the time that I was there. One of them was Genevieve, I feel like her draping skills and style was really unique and really organic and I feel like she was the only one that was kind of pushing that style which I think will give her an edge. I was also really impressed by Sunny’s tailoring. It was very crisp, very clean all the time and he’s very fast which is a factor you need to have to win these challenges, you need to be a very fast sewer as well. I think the 2 of them are definitely going to be way up there in the competition.

CF: So what’s next for you?
MV: I’m trying to expand to a bigger market. I’m already in boutiques in Montreal, Toronto and New York, so we are trying to push over to the West Coast because of the exposure of the show, more of Canada knows about me now. I’m thinking about doing the alternative fashion week in Toronto. Right now I just really want to work on getting into more boutiques and getting across Canada.

Links:

Proper Apparel Website

Photos courtesy of Canwest Media + Proper Apparel