There’s a very unusual and talented addition to the Scotiabank Northern Lights Music Festival this year. Rosemarie Umetsu, the “fashion designer to classical performers” will be presenting and demonstrating her unique couture at the Piano for Four Hands Concert and Fashion Show on Friday, February 20.
Originally from Sri Lanka, her couturier grandmother made all her clothes, so Umetsu always loved fashion and dressed well.
Although she trained as a classical pianist at Trinity College, London and then Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music, Umetsu realized her limitations. “I wasn’t going to be the next Horowitz. I could be a decent collaborative pianist, but would also need to teach and I’d be a horrible teacher.”
She began work in interior design, where her employer, a large hotel and restaurant chain, sponsored her through four years’ design school.
Umetsu says her husband Wayne urged her to enter the word of fashion.
“He told me, ‘You don’t realize it, but you eat, sleep and breathe fashion.’ He was right. It’s funny, because colleagues and friends who were at the Conservatory with me – who are now clients – remember me running around like crazy, right before recitals saying, ‘No, you couldn’t possibly wear something like that!’ We were students, we had no money, but I’d go shopping, buy dresses, have them wear them to their concert and return them the next day! I’d no idea that 20 years later I’d be dressing musicians for a living.”
Joining Holt Renfrew, she became a merchandiser within three months and a buyer three years later; designing and developing products with various labels.
After six months as a product developer with Club Monaco, she left to accept an irresistible offer, spearheading a new line for a younger demographic aged 20-30, specifically for North America and involving a lot of Paris, New York, Toronto travel. Here the classes on drawing and textiles, shared by interior design and fashion students, proved invaluable and she also made useful retail and design contacts.
In 2004, Wayne asked why she didn’t do what she was doing now for herself, and put her name on it. “He took time off from banking to work with me for the first year and he’s never gone back! He’s our business manager.”
They began like any typical fashion label, creating annual collections, using agents and stocked by speciality stores across Canada, plus stores in New York, Chicago, Florida and London, but by 2007 Umetsu felt that retailers’ demands were impinging on her creative ability.
They discovered that, entirely co-incidentally, over 55 percent of their client base at their own boutique in upmarket Yorkville, Toronto was involved in the performing arts. “So we closed our wholesale accounts, became exclusive via our retail shop ‘Atelier Rosemarie Umetsu’ and we’ve never looked back.”
Her ability to identify the clothing needs and constraints of her clients is unique and her insights are fascinating. “While walking on stage in a fabulous dress is awesome, it’s got to function, depending what instrument the person is playing.”
“If you’re going to have embellishment on a dress, it must be on the right-hand side, that’s the audience side. Pianists and conductors need more room under their arms. You have to know what materials work for string players because their instruments are always rubbing against the fabric. They’re traveling like crazy, so clothes must be light and packable.”
Occasion, repertoire, relevancy and location are crucial determinants to selection. After listening to the pieces concerned, Umetsu recommends colors and couture accordingly. She dresses individual artists and groups, both male and female.
In 2009, Canadian-born conductor Peter Oundjian mentioned that he found wearing tails stuffy and restricting, so Umetsu came up with the “shirket.”
“It’s heavier than regular shirt fabric and cut in such a way that you think he’s wearing a jacket but it’s actually a shirt. It has the required formality, but is fabulously comfortable when waving the arms about and he’s never worn a suit since.”
This will be a great opportunity to see Umetsu’s exquisite couture and 20 percent of sales during the Festival will be donated to the new instrument bank for the children of Lakeside!
Tickets: on sale from 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Monday to Fri.day at The Nueva Posada Hotel, Ajijic. Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call Maureen Welch at 766-6087.