Her canvas is fluid and three diminutional, not square and hanging on a wall. It’s the dress. What seemed like a missed opportunity to her family and the teachers in art school, is a blessing for the fashion world. The painter within Renata Morales says it takes her a long time to create something decent. It is hard to believe, when seeing her new collection.



Her metallic obsession this fall is in the spirit of the mod squad, a trend seen on the runaways this season, yet it is definitely less Twiggy and more fairy-like. Constantly evolving by way of trial and error, as she says, learning by way of adding and subtracting, she remains free of the production line constraints of the prêt-à-porter, and brings fashion back to its artistic roots.



She’s inspired by the not-yet-mainstream Montreal music scene. While she was telling me about her infinite pleating and reworking of fabrics, she was working on costumes for the Arcade Fire show at Pop Montreal. The Arcade Fire lads are friends, they always include her in their ventures when they can, and Regine is THE Morales dress fan. Renata also collaborated with Claire Boucher on the Grimes videos, transforming the singer and visual artist into a mythical hawk figure in Crystal Ball. The day of the interview, she was listening to Justin Bieber (sic).



She is currently part of a festival in Hollywood celebrating Quebec creativity, along with fellow Quebec designers Denis Gagnon, Philippe Dubuc and created a piece for the MMFA Big Bang show opening this month. I sat down with Renata for a Q&A to pick her brain about this year’s fall fashion, turn the page to take a look.