With its sleek, feminine silhouettes, it’s no accident that the work of Vancouver fashion designer Jason Matlo harkens back to the sultry 1970s, conjuring up the feeling of Halston in his prime.
Matlo, who also teaches aspiring designers, doesn’t hold back his opinion on today’s style, which he says is filled with too many surgically-enhanced versions of the female body.
“I’m seeing women pushing their boobs and everything higher and higher up. They’re practically wearing them like a set of earrings,” he laments.
During his highly anticipated runway show at Eco Fashion Week this past spring, Matlo and his team removed the bra, letting “women’s breasts fall back down to where they naturally want to be.”
As a gay male designer, Matlo says he creates clothes from a projection or a fantasy of how he would like women to look. It’s a common theme he sees from many of his gay students in the classroom.
The women Matlo teaches and works with tend to take a more “pragmatic,” wearable approach to design, says the veteran designer known for his trademark platinum hair and glamorous dresses he creates for west-side socialites.
“Women design for themselves and other women, and it looks completely different. And not one is better than the other, but they’re very, very different,” he says. “Men design from a controlled fantasy, and I’m certainly guilty of this as well.”
A child of the decade, Matlo’s inspiration comes from the sexy ‘70s – think Charlie’s Angels, flowing hair and hemlines, Studio 54.
“There is a certain story around when gay men design. They are typically more flamboyant,” Matlo says. “I work around all women. I am the only gay man on my design team. My influences are very different than the girls that work with me.”
Citing those influences, Matlo references shoe designer Brian Atwood, whom he met when they were both stocked at The Room at Hudson’s Bay.
In a recent Instagram post, Atwood uploaded a shot of Olivia Newton-John in Grease.
Matlo’s assistant tagged him in the pic because the image of Newton-John’s character’s transformation from pony-tailed good girl into saucy hot pants and red heels was a seminal one for the Vancouver designer.
Matlo is known for his collections of stunningly crafted bridal gowns, which run between $3,000 and $8,000, along with his sophisticated ready-to-wear collection, that goes from $450 to $1,500, and ready-made dresses, priced between $300 and $400.
A year ago Matlo and his team, based in his Gastown studio, pulled back his stocklists – removing his line from stores and began selling direct instead. The move resulted in the designer having his best year financially.
Meanwhile, for the first time in four years, Matlo and his boyfriend will be in town for Pride this weekend. The designer, who scooped up the coveted Smirnoff International Fashion Awards after graduating in the 1990s, beating out more than 500 Canadian designers, and also won a design reality TV show called Making it Big, says these are interesting times to be gay, noting the emergence of Caitlyn Jenner.
“It’s a fascinating, fascinating time for the gay community right now; it certainly has propelled forward more in the last year than I thought I was going to see in my lifetime, because I was a gay teen in the 1980s – in Kelowna, to boot,” Matlo laughs. “I never thought I would see the day when it was this open and this accepted.”
