TITLE:
Being a Fashion Designer in Montreal: Flexible Careers across the Life Course!
AUTHORS:
Amina Yagoubi, Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay
KEYWORDS:
Creative Careers, Creative City, Fashion Design, Montreal
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Human Resource and Sustainability Studies,
Vol.4 No.3,
September
6,
2016
ABSTRACT: Our article addresses the evolution of the fashion designer career over the last century, and situates
this in the context of the “creative city” of Montréal: “UNESCO City of design” (2006). In the
context of the complex world of local fashion, one form of the World of Art [1], we explore the reality
of the flexible career and theprecarious form of work of fashion designers in Montreal. For this,
we present a brief historical overview of the development of the profession in order to understand
how the profession of fashion design has emerged locally and how careers have developed and
transformed over the years and the designers’ life courses. After this overview, we examine the
more recent development and the new vision of this profession in the context of the creative
economy and particularly the paradox of a career situated between the artistic endeavour and the
entrepreneurial and financial challenges. Methodologically, this study is based on a literature review
as well as on three series of interviews conducted over the past years (2010-2013) with some
(48) designers as well as organizations and associations working in the fashion industry. However,
here we use mainly the case of one designer, Jean-Claude Poitras, as a particular illustration.