Farley Chatto
Farley Chatto doesn't play the star, even with a spotlight pointed at him. The Toronto designer, who occupies a select spot in the top ranks of Canadian fashion, prefers to focus on the people wearing his clothes.
"It's not about the fame for me," Mr. Chatto, who has clothed the likes of Elton John, Chris Noth, Sarah Jessica Parker, Andrea Martin and Measha Brueggergosman, once said in a magazine article. "It's all about the people."
That mindset may be one reason for Mr. Chatto's staying power in an especially tough and competitive business, where he's enjoyed almost 27 years of success. But ultimately it's his talent for designing dramatic, personality-laden clothes that has made him a leader in Canadian fashion.
In the years since he trained in the fashion design program at Toronto's Ryerson University, Mr. Chatto has designed for big names such as MAC Cosmetics, Louis Vuitton, L'Oreal, BMW and Veuve Clicquot. He has worked with top designers in New York, Paris and Milan, and created costumes for movies and television and Toronto's Mirvish Productions.
He's also busy with private clients -- both men and women -- many of whom are unreservedly public about how much they love Mr. Chatto's custom-designed clothes.
Yet for all his success, Mr. Chatto still finds time to support the fashion community and various causes dear to his heart. In 2004, when Kruger Products L.P., , maker of Cashmere bathroom tissue, invited him to lend his talent to the first White Cashmere Collection in support of Canadian designers, Mr. Chatto accepted promptly. He also took on the role of unofficial curator for the collection, which focused on designs made with white cashmere fabric.
In 2009, Mr. Chatto was invited again to design for the White Cashmere Collection. This time, however, the material of choice was not white cashmere fabric but Cashmere bathroom tissue, which the collection had switched to in 2006.
"It was an intriguing challenge," recalls Mr. Chatto, who was born in Regina. "I accepted, of course."
While he was excited about the creative and technical challenges of turning bathroom tissue into couture, Mr. Chatto says that what really motivated him was Cashmere's support of the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, a national not-for-profit organization that works to promote breast cancer research and awareness.
Cashmere came calling again in 2011, to ask Mr. Chatto if he would curate that year's collection. He dreamed up a baroque theme and broke ground on several fronts, bringing in the collection's first mature model, first fashion editorial location shoot and first tissue-made menswear.
This year, for the collection's 10th anniversary, Mr. Chatto plays both curator and designer. And when the spotlight shines on him, his designs and the collection he put together, Mr. Chatto will, true to form, be graciously reticent.
"I'm doing the collection for my Auntie Ellen, who died of breast cancer, and for a dear friend, Leanne Coppen, who died of cancer in 2010, when she was only 37," he says. "I'm doing this for all the women and families out there whose lives have been changed forever by this disease."