Sydné Barnes-Wright shows off her all-black collection inspired by her perspectives called NOIRÉ
Photo by Brittany Barber
Watch out George Brown College, there’s a new creative designer in the building and she’s only 19 years old. Syndé Barnes-Wright, a first year fashion techniques and design student, is a talented young woman who means business.
Her first ever pop-up shop, AAESTHETIC, showed off a black collection appropriately named NOIRÉ. Barnes-Wright uses imported pieces from Korea and local thrift shop items, striving to shed light on local Canadian designers.
While she curated the clothing line herself, her creative eye doesn’t stop there.
“The interior with the table, the wooden top and the clothing rack made out of PVC pipe was an interior design by me,” says Barnes-Wright, “I just kind of wanted to make everything a little more meticulous in terms of how I wanted it.”
Barnes-Wright is finding that it’s hard for Canadian designers to find an outlet in the growing fashion industry of Toronto to showcase their work.
“You can go anywhere and find designers from Germany, London and New York but it’s rare that you find modern, contemporary, high-end designers in Canada, so that’s what I want to push with AAESTHETIC, and see that in the future,” she explains.
NOIRÉ was inspired after Barnes-Wright had been laid off at a retail store. While looking for a new source of income she had to rethink her intentions.
“I’m just so tired of conforming (to retail),“ says Barnes-Wright, reflecting on her epiphany, “I said, ‘I’m just going to go out and do it and just make it happen’, and that was the pop-up. It was the easiest thing that came to my mind.”
As a reproduction of her perspective, an aspect far from forgotten throughout AAESTHETIC, Barnes-Wright wanted to incorporate pieces that fit the seasons and her mood.
“AAESTHETIC is someone’s perspective on beauty, lifestyle and fashion and my perspective. It’s subtle and kind of nature versus nurture; when we look at the tone of black we’re always kind of in that belief of ‘Oh, it’s man made or it’s not something natural, it’s not something true,’ ” says Barnes-Wright.
Barnes-Wright has every intention to continue on after she takes the time to reflect on both the feedback of AAESTHETICS, and the preparation of the collection.
“That will determine how big or how different I would do my next one or where I want to do it. Even where I want to be in life when I do my next one,” she says.
Barnes-Wright is a determined student with a lot of potential, and when asked to define herself she states, “once you limit yourself to one definition, you’re not going to look past what you can be. I would say I’m a person who is always looking, always searching, always curious and always wondering what’s next.”
With one pop-up shop under her belt, she is well on her way to making her own statements in the fashion world, saying, “my motivation is to just keep pushing myself in terms of being creative and just getting my perspective out there in my own way.”
