SURREY — When Ashley Morin's piano teacher took her to the opera as a child, she didn't know it would be the foundation of her love affair with fashion design.
"I realized that I kind of fell in love with costumes and that theatrical part of fashion," said the now 21-year-old Surreyite, of going to the opera.
Morin, now a fashion design student at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, will be on her way east come March as one of 25 fashion students across the country picked to compete in the Telio National Design Competition held in Montreal. Her design, inspired by the 1920s, fits in with this year's Telio theme, Lux(e).
"It's just one garment," Morin, who is in the third-year of her program, said.Again, she was motivated by drama to create the piece. "I was really inspired by Downton Abbey... I was watching it one day and I thought, I always wanted to make 1920s modern.
"In the '20s, women had these beautiful dresses that were customized with the beadwork and the handwork and that's something that we really have lost today, with mass manufacturing and Forever 21 and this fast fashion, where we treat it like it's disposable. I wanted to bring back that one-of-a-kind, almost heirloom pieces.
"It's hard to argue that period pieces aren't Morin's strong point, as she's volunteered doing alterations with the Vancouver Opera and on a locally-filmed indie flick, Eadweard."It was a period film. I believe it was set in the 1800s, so the costumes were beautiful," Morin told the Now.
"I just helped out with minor alterations and a little bit of pattern drafting."
With all her volunteer work and dedication to design, it's no wonder she was picked to compete in Telio, and the young fashionista couldn't be more thrilled.
"It has been absolutely incredible," Morin said of being asked to compete. "It opens so many doors in the field you didn't even know existed."
The Telio National Design Competition takes place from March 16 to 18 this year.