We will shortly be presenting the collaboration between Confetti Mill and textile artist Magali Robidaire and we wanted to take a moment to talk about this recent adventure which is proving to be a very prolific one. Collaborations like this are important for Confetti Mill, they allow us to do something new in addition to bringing a lot of inspiration, but above all they allow us to reuse all the scraps of fabric that we keep preciously at the workshop to showcase every fiber that is not used in our products.
A journey of fortuitous discoveries
Magali, a Frenchwoman who fell in love with Quebec a few years ago, first studied graphic design in France before crossing the Atlantic to settle in Montreal. It was while working for several clothing designers that she discovered a new passion for textiles and the ins and outs of the clothing industry. “I found myself getting closer to the textile trades, which gave me a better understanding of what my grandmother had done for a living. My grandmother was a little hand in lingerie workshops in Paris, "the 37-year-old artist explains to me.
It was at this moment that she discovered the existence of textile design, “I started a technique in textile design, it was done in collaboration with the CÉGEP du Vieux-Montréal, a technique that I completed in 2019. So, I had about 6 months between the end of my technique and the start of the pandemic,” Magali told me, laughing. But, if the pandemic confined her like the rest of the world, she took the opportunity to make textile collage using scraps of fabrics that she had kept throughout her technique. "The shapes that I made had something reassuring in the darkness of the start of the pandemic", the naive shapes stuck on a simple plain background remind her as much of Matisse's paintings as of the shapes on the textiles that decorated her grandmother’s apartment.
The meeting that leads to collaboration
At the start of the pandemic, with a group of artist friends, Magali organized an auction to sell their works. It is in this context that she met Özge who bought one of her pieces, a meeting that will lead to the collaboration that we are now presenting to you. “I spent many summers in Corsica as a child and there is something about this Mediterranean island in the work she [Özge] bought from me. And Özge, who grew up in Turkey, saw the same influence of the Mediterranean basin of his childhood near the sea”.
Magali's words are the best to explain what is behind this series: “For this collaboration with Confetti Mill, I wanted to develop a very particular collection, by plunging myself into the heart of Özge’s soft, warm and generous universe. The idea for this joint project germinated in our minds last year, and we have brought it to life throughout the year. Thus, built bit by bit, for nearly twelve months, it was inspired by the waltz of the seasons, by changes in temperature and light. It is imbued with the hues of time, and the emotions it passes through, creating a sensitive dialogue between our two worlds of creation. "
Works built on values shared with Confetti Mill.
It's not just the shapes that are made from reused fabrics, but also the papers on which they are gathered. The other piece of the puzzle comes from Atelier Retailles where Sophie Pelletier-Voyer recycles the fibers of fabric scraps from several Montreal designers to make beautiful papers.
It is therefore all these fibers recycled in one way or another that Magali Robidaire presents to us, and it is a real pleasure to know that Confetti Mill is one of them. The playful shapes and color combination provide the same softness that we always look for in new product development and we hope you like them as much as we do.