Online Issue 8 (Oct. 2010)

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VINTAGE VOGUE JILL MUNRO, CREATOR OF LUNE VINTAGE, GETS A LITTLE BIT GYPSY WITH HER VINTAGE COLLECTION. Words by KRISTY HOFFMAN Photography by IZABELA RACHWAL Styled by CHANELLE SALNIKOWSKI Makeup by JANIQUE LAVOIE Hair by HALEY GOLIN

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It is a chilly October morning on Albert Street and beside me stands a peculiar girl, aged thirty. Old fashioned, with dark eyes and a winsome smile, she could very well be a delicate figment of the past. Her name is Jill Munro; she is the artist behind Lune, a local vintage line. We wait as the surrounding boutiques begin to open their doors to a crisp autumn air.

“Hey, girls! Would you mind throwing these leaves around?” A young man is gesturing to us. On “three, two, one,” the subjects of a photograph are decorated by speckles of golden browns flying up, up, up and through the disarray. I see Jill smiling.

Now, inside a busy café and between bites of a cinnamon bun, she describes how an eclectic array of garments came to be. “Lune was born out of my love for collecting vintage.”

Her aspiration is to evoke modernity within original vintage by altering detail where she sees fit, “the end result is part of me present in something already beautiful.”

Lune is a comprehensive vintage affair, if not a bit of a gypsy thing. A 1970’s trailer serves as the mobile shop in which the era-specific collection is displayed during summer months. It is evident that before me sits a sophisticated curator with a true knack for this thing.

Mainstream fashion seemingly afar, each antiquated piece and original design (the latter forming a portion of the line called Love Lune) is more so inspired by a time gone by than a current happening. “My husband and I love old movies and I derive inspiration from them. I really like Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. I craft pieces as I find material that inspires me.”

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At least five days a week, Jill may be found inside thrift shops around the city. “I consider myself a designer second only to a vintage seller.” Her blog for Lune is updated several times a week­—if not daily—with detailed photographs and snippets of insight into her life.

“I spend a lot of time on Lune,” she remarks with modesty. “The business has become a second child to me.

It is part of me like a child is part of their mother; it has grown and will continue to grow. Luckily I don’t have to pay for daycare for it,” she laughs.

With any vintage garment comes a story: blouses worn at a time when Trudeau reigned, or a mood ring that once resided on the finger of your twelve-year-old mother. “I want my clients to really feel that sense of the past through wearing my pieces.”

A clothing rack, organized under late summer skies according to floral and stripe, polka dot and fringe, is pictured on the Lune Vintage blog. It freely creates nostalgia for a time when the World Trade Center was standing as the tallest building the world and The Mary Tyler Moore Show was all the rage. In other words, Lune does exactly that.

Now back on Albert Street, we part ways. The strong sense of youth and modesty that is Jill bears uniqueness from an incredibly wise vintage line called Lune. Her eye for garments that nearly permit reliving the past makes me wonder if maybe, in another life, Jill Munro herself has lived it all before.

To view the blog and purchase garments from the Lune Vintage line, visit www.lunevintage.com.

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OCTOBER 2010 | THE SOUND

ALL ABOARD

WE CHAT WITH WINNIPEG BAND BOATS AND ITS ECCENTRIC LEADER ABOUT MUSIC, CANOES AND THEIR BABY, BETH. Words by ETHAN CABEL Photography courtesy of VALENTIN MITTELSTET 6

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It is a bright fall day, 11:45 in the morning and Mat Klachefsky, the lead singer/songwriter for local indie pop band Boats, leans back in a patio chair at the Forks Market.

He takes a long sip of his Alexander Keith’s red amber ale, letting the foam linger in his thick beard.

“Boats will be around until I die,” he says.

The rest of the band, which includes Louis Levesque Cote (bass), Luke Bergen (drums), Mark Schram (backup guitar) and Ashley Roch (keys, trumpet) nod in agreement.

The band has alternated through countless different members since Klachefsky started performing his quirky, light-hearted indie songs in 2002.

Out of a constant desire to tour, he has replaced every member of the band other than Ashley Roch since their first critically acclaimed recording (2005’s Intercontinental Champion) and just added Mark Shram after their second and most recent album, Cannonballs, Cannonballs, was released this year.

“I can never figure out playing in other bands,” says Klachefsky, 28, who learned to play music on the internet and started his own record label at 18. “I only know how to write songs and tell other people how to play them.”

He is the sole songwriter, the lead singer, guitarist and band manager. His cool exterior betrays the fiery passion he holds for the band and the eccentric, high-pitched singing voice that has become emblematic of every Boats song.

“My voice gets really high when I’m excited about something,” Klachefsky explains.

His odd vocal range perfectly compliments his songwriting. His lyrics—a combination of absurd poetic snapshots—distill palatable, emotional imagery in the listener.

“I don’t really write with myself in mind. I’m influenced by the absurdities that come my way,” he says.

Cannonballs, Cannonballs demonstrates this dynamic lyricism.

“So pull out your compass and get out your map. For the citywide game of capture the flag,” Klachefsky sings on the albums opening track, “Sunrise on the Muffin District.”

The song closes with Klachefsky’s soft voice over a

beautiful guitar melody.

“And every sunset silhouette was an Olympic ski jumper,” he sings.

Many of these lyrics come out of years spent on the rustic, secluded islands of the Lake of the Woods, just south of Kenora, Ontario. As a summer camp counsellor for the YMCA-YMCA’s Camp Stephens, Klachefsky led canoe trips for up to six weeks on end.

Even the band’s name is a Camp Stephens reference, picked because it was a short, monosyllabic word and because the band’s leader had spent so much of his life with, or on, boats.

“It definitely influenced my songwriting because it’s such a bizarre way to live,” he says. “Some of my songs are just loosely put together lines.”

“Every line is a separate something,” chimes in Ashley Roch, who after years performing and touring with Klachefsky still seems impressed by his talents. “It evokes imagery.”

All the members of Boats each revolve around Klachefsky, the band’s nucleus, in some way.

Roch, 29, is the oldest member. She teases him about his fashion sense even as they reminisce about old times.

Luke Bergen, 24 and Louis Levesque Cote, 26, who both joined the band in 2007, are close friends and huge fans of his songwriting. Mark Schram, 21, who joined the band only a month before this interview, is the silent newbie.

On tour, this mish-mash of cash-strapped characters is often forced to share a hotel room even as they travel in “Beth,” a van that Levesque Cote describes as “the greatest in the history of time.”

“Beth” is a Chevy G20 with leather seats, a DVD player, a Nintendo and an inscription reminding drivers that it was custom built for an American named Bill Bethke.

“I wouldn’t travel in anything else,” says Roch.

In early September, the entire band seems restlessly excited to embark on a tour from Winnipeg to parts of western Canada and the United States and back again, before heading out east in late October.

Cigarette smoke, and considerable laughter, rises from the patio table.

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OCTOBER 2010 |ABOUT TOWN

BURGER GO BOON

Words by TAYLOR BURGESS Photography by ANNA BORYS

THE NEW VEGAN BURGER JOINT THAT’S FOOLING EVEN THE MEATY-EST EATERS. When Tomas Sohlberg and Anneen DuPlessis came back to Winnipeg, they wanted to take every risk that they could. Boon Burger, their newest restaurant, is an inexplicably hip combination of kitschy, modern, contemporary, and cute. And so far, the risks have paid off.

Since June, people have been lining up at the Sherbrook Street restaurant and boasting about all its aspects—not just the delicious all-vegan menu.

The idea sprang from their last restaurant, Kameleon, a vegetarian café on Quadra Island in British Columbia.

“The veggie burgers out there were so popular,” says Sohlberg. “Then Aneen came up with the idea of just a vegetarian burger place. We had never heard of it. That’s just so crazy that it might work!”

“Crazy” is the only way to describe Boon’s most adventurous burger, the Thanksgiving Burger, which features a breaded “turkey” patty, maple-glazed yams, vegan gravy, cranberry sauce, crispy onions, mayo, and 8

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lettuce. Other than raiding your baba’s pantry, where else can you fill your cranberry and gravy craving all year round?

The locale’s eight other burgers aren’t nearly so wild but they’re equally distinct—like the Baja Burger (with pineapple and “special Bermuda sauce”), the Greek Burger (olive tapinade, cucumber, and feta), or the Salsa Burger (red onion, salsa, and avocado). The patties are all made in-house and there aren’t any unpleasant surprises on the menu. Actually, all of the burgers would look right at home on a non-vegetarian burger joint’s menu.

“So many meat items are generically named after what’s in them—so we wanted to try that out,” says Sohlberg.

He notes that as his wife DuPlessis came up with the recipes, she headed towards these meat-ambiguous dishes.

“She came up with these theme burgers, because most vegetarian places have lentil burgers, sprouts, or these other clichés that she wanted to stay away from.”

DuPlessis and Sohlberg strayed so far from veggie norms that they’re even swaying your average omnivore.

“There were a couple guys in here eating after it opened.

They were talking about how they couldn’t believe it was completely vegetarian. One guy next to them looks up, wide-eyed, and says, “What, there’s no meat in here?”’

Sohlberg laughs. “If we have a vegan burger place and we’ve fooled a meat-eater, we’ve done our job here.”

But the vegetarian and vegan aspect definitely isn’t the fixture of the restaurant. As Sohlberg says, when you walk in the door, you won’t hear us ranting and raving about the vegetarian diet. (Even though there are plenty of health benefits to it.)

What you do notice when you first walk in the door is a big pile of plastic animals sitting by the cash register.

Sohlberg says there was another opportunity to point out the irony of not serving animals. “We thought that letters and numbers that you bring back to your table are overdone, and we really wanted to do something unique.

So part of the fun is picking out which animal you want to bring back to your table from the cash register. And when it came to that, we had nothing to lose.”

And the tables don’t resemble tables as much as picnic benches for some hotdog or fry shack. As gaudy as that sounds, it was actually inspired from the pages of Dwell magazine, a modern architecture magazine.

“We both just loved the simplicity of it. Because we didn’t have a lot of room to work with, we thought it would encourage squeezing together.”

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OCTOBER 2010 | BEAUTIFUL MAN

BEAUTIFUL MAN

DERRICK KOLLY: THE ROOFER OF OUR DREAMS Photography by BRITTANY ALYSE

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OCTOBER 2010 | TALENT & TITS

TALENT & TITS

Words by BRENLEE COATES Photography by LISA VARGA Styled by ECO DZAMAN Hair by HANNA LITTLE Makeup by DAENA GROLEAU

THE “ANNOYINGLY” POSITIVE AND UNDENIABLY CHARMING LIFE COACH WHO BUILT HER OWN BUSINESS ON HER KNACK FOR GIVING GREAT ADVICE. “I should just go with ‘Live the Alfa Life,’” jokes Aisha Alfa when it’s suggested she needs a catchphrase for her life coaching business.

Even if it isn’t an official patented phrase, the Alfa life, as it turns out, is totally desirable.

Alfa, a 30-year-old certified life coach who started her own business last January, seems to have the perfect mix of business and pleasure in her life. She is almost addicted to the rewards of helping others through her sage advice, and keeps challenging herself to grow in other areas, like doing standup comedy, studying acting and speaking publicly at workshops.

“I really just want to live the life that I’m talking to people about,” says Alfa.

Alfa preaches enjoying life and using your skills to the fullest, and she recently realized that coaching and the artistic hobbies she’s involved in were the things that helped her do it.

Rewind a few years and Alfa was joyously living in South Korea, teaching English and then getting to travel to put on workshops for other teachers. She was perfectly happy living there for the four years she spent, but one change at home whisked her back.

“The only thing that brought me back was my brother had a baby,” recalls Alfa. She knew she would fall in love with the baby and couldn’t imagine being out of its life.

This change helped a lot of people’s lives change for the better. Alfa had the chance to basically start anew when she returned to Winnipeg, and she chose something utilitarian.

For once, she says, “I didn’t have assumed happiness. I really had to figure out what made me happy.”

Alfa was a psych major and graduated with a BA from the University of Alberta, and was often touted by her psychology professor for having the perfect makeup for a life coach. Plus, many of her friends went to her for career counseling or life direction.

“I’ve always been the one where it’s like, ‘She’s annoying ‘cause she’s so positive.’”

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Alfa says most people she coaches need to re-examine what they want in life and what they’re actually doing to see what matches up and what may be counterproductive.

She sometimes works with really successful people who are mismanaging their time and need to reprioritize, or people who are looking to do more in their lives.

The common thread seems to be “people who have an inkling that there’s more to life” than what they’re doing, says Alfa.

Her regimen for success usually begins with a three-to six-month contract where the individuals meet with her weekly, every two weeks or once a month.

Alfa is so committed to customizing her methods that she can share success stories about people changing their lives through repeating affirmations, meditating, and simply making a difficult phone call.

The goal is for clients to see improvement in their lives, whether it’s tangible or intangible.

“Sometimes it’s actually achieving a goal, like getting that promotion, and sometimes it’s changing an attitude,” she says.

“As cheesy as it sounds, helping people reach their goals has just made my life so much more fulfilling,” says Alfa.

Coming from someone who constantly fills a room with laughter, has had spots on various TV series shot locally and has taught her native language to students in a foreign country, it’s somewhat humbling that Alfa’s life can still be touched so deeply by others.

But even though she’s successful, Alfa won’t be resting on her laurels.

“I’d like to do some more comedy stuff, hosting different events. And I’d really like to do more speaking internationally and for different, diverse groups around the city.”

Her next goal fulfillment opportunities will take place locally on four dates in October and November, where she’ll be offering the collaborative workshops “Dressing the Authentic You” and “Crazy, Busy, Successful.” Visit alfalifecoaching.ca for dates and to register.

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OCTOBER 2010 | LIFE STORIES

DISTINGUISHED DIVAS Words by KRISTY RYDZ Photography provided

THE NEW, LOCALLY-PRODUCED DOCUMENTARY THAT PROFILES THE TIME WHEN WINNIPEG OWNED THE FASHION INDUSTRY.

Only 20 years ago, Winnipeg was a mecca of modeling in this country with a close-knit group of local women making their livings by strutting their stuff on runways and striking poses for advertising campaigns.

A new home-grown documentary called The Glory Days of Modeling is giving audiences an authentic, behind-thescenes look at the work, friendships and personalities that made Winnipeg’s modeling scene the dynamic presence it was in the 1970s and ’80s.

“A lot of people didn’t really know there was a huge modeling industry in Winnipeg. Huge,” co-producer Adriana O’Neil said of her and her partner Alf Kollinger’s motivations for creating the film. “I wanted people to be able to peek into what the industry is about without it being voyeuristic and welcome people into what the world of modeling was at that time.”

As one of the models who got her start in the early ’80s, actor/producer O’Neil and Kollinger­—her close friend of 30 years, as well as an actor, producer, writer and model in his own right—conceptualized, researched, shot, edited and produced the documentary themselves from April to August for MTS Video On Demand television.

While they have created a handful of short films together over the years, the 35-minute feature is their largest endeavour to date. The result is a compilation of both interviews with the men and women that put Winnipeg on the map alongside stunning photos that ran in fashion sections of the Winnipeg Free Press and Winnipeg Tribune, as well as advertising campaigns for the likes of The Bay and Eatons, among others.

In total, the dynamic duo, that act as one another’s tempering agents and motivators, chatted with seven models, including: Jane Campbell, founder and director of Panache Management; Sandra Hagenaars, marketing 14

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director for Polo Park; Bruce Knowles, owner of Image 2 Photography Studio; Judi Meller, fashion stylist; and veteran photographer Tony Nardella.

All interviewed in their homes, the subjects tell the true tales of what it was like to be a part of the little-known snapshot in Winnipeg’s history.

“During the interviews we had everything from uncontrollable laughter to tears,” Kollinger recalled.

With all models representing themselves—no agents— and getting jobs in editorial photography to lunch hour and choreographed fashion shows by word-of-mouth, Winnipeg’s supermodels did all their own make-up and hair for each job in addition to carting around bags full of shoes, boots, jewellery, slips and everything else needed to look perfect for a client’s every whim.

“It was amazing what you have to put on in the back of a car and come out looking like a million bucks,” O’Neil said. “I’m sorry, in Winnipeg, you start diva stuff and you will not work again. You can not be a diva working here. During our timeframe there was not one diva in the group.”

The modeling mavens remain close friends to this day, a testament to the strength of the sisterhood forged during photo shoots over the years. All seven lovely ladies, now in their golden years, came together for a collective shoot at the end of the filming with the photos featured at the end of the documentary.

“What I love about these women is that they remain playful regardless of their age,” O’Neil said thoughtfully.

The documentary is available on MTS Video On Demand now and its producers are currently shopping it around for wider distribution to ensure as many people as possible get to catch their labour of love.

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