Ottawa fashion designer Stacey Martin is trading New York for Paris after presenting her third New York Fashion Week show, with an invitation now in hand to show her collection at Paris Fashion Week on Oct. 5.
From Ottawa dance studios to Broadway
Martin's path to fashion did not start with fashion at all. Growing up in Ottawa, she spent a lot of time dancing at the competitive level. At 18, she moved to New York City, ready to fulfill a dream of dancing on Broadway, and she landed a role in Saturday Night Fever, a Broadway show based on the 1977 disco movie.
That performing background eventually led her toward design. In 2017, Martin said she was asked to present a collection at Toronto Fashion Week, a turning point that pushed her further into the fashion business.
Building a brand with community backing
By 2021, Martin was ready to bring her brand to a new level, rebranding her business to Stacey Martin Lifestyle. To help fund that growth, she turned to the community rather than traditional investors. She got 167 shareholders from the community who invested between $200 and $30,000 each, raising a total of $297,000.
The business now runs a storefront and atelier on Ottawa's York Street, giving the label a physical home base in the city even as Martin's shows take place on much bigger stages in New York and, soon, Paris.
A six-minute show, 48 hours to pull it together
Martin's third New York Fashion Week show was a six-minute presentation, but the work behind those six minutes was intense. Her team had 48 hours to do fittings, rehearsals and present the show on Sunday night, Sept. 13.
That kind of compressed timeline is part of why Martin describes fashion as a very difficult business to go into to be recognized. Success on the runway does not come from a single big moment. It comes from repeated cycles of building a collection, fitting it, rehearsing it and presenting it, often on a deadline measured in hours rather than weeks.
Next stop, Paris
With the New York show behind her, Martin has been invited to present her collection at Paris Fashion Week on Oct. 5. For an Ottawa designer who started out as a competitive dancer chasing a Broadway role, the invitation marks another step in a career built on repeatedly proving herself in front of new audiences, first on stage and now on the runway.
Martin's story is a reminder that a York Street storefront in Ottawa can sit at the centre of a business with runway shows in New York and Paris. The fashion industry's glamour is often built on unglamorous work: fittings that run into the night, rehearsals squeezed into two days, and years of smaller shows before an international one.
For now, the focus shifts to Paris, where Martin's Ottawa-rooted label will get another chance to be seen on one of fashion's biggest stages.
Sources: Ottawa Business Journal
