photography by JR Bernstein
Most of you know Canadian designer, Christopher Bates, as a Mercedes-Benz StartUp finalist from last season’s World MasterCard Fashion Week in Toronto. His tongue-in-cheek, lipstick-on-your-collar, dress shirt is a calling card for his Bond-inspired menswear. He serves up fashion shaken, not stirred. But something you may not know about Mr. Bates – he’s eurotrash. We immediately hit it off.
photography by JR Bernstein
A month later, JR Bernstein and I are on set with Mr. Bates at his Toronto studio. He’s unaffected but nonchalant, posing for the cameras as though he’s done it his whole life. I ask the questions, JR hits the shutter and Mr. Bates, he comes to life.
“The Marangoni fashion school, where I studied for a year, was my first taste of Eurotrash,” says Mr. Bates, “I spent a lot of time wandering the streets of Milan just so captivated by the style, that European aesthetic, which North Americans are completely devoid of.”
Mr. Bates decided to become a fashion designer after a visit to Scandinavia and the Baltics. It was the individualism he saw on the streets that really inspired him. “I’ll never forget this one guy in Stockholm. He was wearing trashed blue jeans, a necklace he turned into a bracelet, and a crisp white shirt. It was simple but unforgettable. He just dominated the street.” Mr. Bates smiles and adds, “guys in Stockholm are the best dressed in the world.”
photography by JR Bernstein
A heavy dose of Bret Easton Ellis novels and a trip on an overnight fairy to Riga, Latvia turned Mr. Bates into eurotrash. “It was those spontaneous, almost ritualistic moments that forged my understanding of eurotrash. It’s a lifestyle of hedonism and beauty – just like Victor Ward, the lead character in Ellis’ Glamorama, says, ‘the better you look, the more you see.’”
Mr. Bates started with a line of clothing he aptly titled, Euortrash, even though it didn’t make sense in the Canadian market. For him, it was the very essence of all the accumulated knowledge and experiences those many trips to Europe afforded him. “I was once at Karlovy Lazne, a massive nightclub in Prague. I found so many inspirations for fabric prints and patterns that night, of pink and blue walls under black light. Dwarfing statues of robots. Things beyond your imagination.”
His Eurotrash line, some pieces of which made it into our photo shoot, is heavily influenced by Balmain, Johan Lindeberg, Ralph Lauren Black Label and Martin Gore of Depeche Mode.
photography by JR Bernstein
Alas, Mr. Bates holds fast to his Eurotrash soul as he embarks on a new chapter of menswear with his eponymous label. His eye is on the evolution of the suit, Christopher Bates is all about the anatomical man. He sews to the body, not to the trend. “The suit was invented to correct posture, since then it’s evolved so much, I start from the anatomy of the human body. The Christopher Bates suit is 2.0″
photography by JR Bernstein
Mr. Bates is wearing pieces from his clothing lines, Eurotrash and Christopher Bates