Vancouver Apparel Takes on Local Identity

Dadabase on Main Street, where Government Clothing is

The top of the portfolio reads, “PRISON PICS.” sold. “Folks want to see change and messages of change,
and one of the easiest things to do is buy clothing with
Just inside of this online gallery, one can look over that message on it.”
Government Clothing Co.’s wide array of brightly screened Walking down any of Vancouver’s main East side or
designer t-shirts, pants, jackets and other garments, all downtown streets, one can find small-scale clothing and
being worn by what looks like prisoners, soldiers, and apparel shops with different “counterculture” messages.
secret police. This includes shops like Dadabase and Motherland on
But a window shopper perusing this line of locally pro- | Main Street and the Seamrippers Craft Collective on West
duced clothing can find professionally screened t-shirts Pender.
covered in everything from political commentary, to “In the last few years, there has been a general resur-
Persian poetry, to wide-eyed toy dogs and barn owls. gence of interest in handmade objects and the joy of man-
In recent years, Vancouver has seen a rise in small-scale _ ufacturing them,” reads Seamrippers’ mission statement.
clothing design marketed to city-goers, especially younger As a collective-run space that opened in 2003, they
customers. offered workshops in silk-screening, sewing, embroidery,
Their most popular design, steadily picked off store and other skills in clothing design before they closed their
shelves since its 2004 release, bears high-contrast face doors ‘this summer in search of a new storefront space.
shots of top US. officials and reads, “Bush and the Gang: Another clothing hotspot in Vancouver today is

Fucking the World Tour.” The back reads a list of different | American Apparel, internationally known as the largest U.S.
places where the United States has made recent military clothing company, and the garment company with the

interventions. highest paid workers in the world.
While Government is a fashion project created by two
Vancouver-based designers, their work travels to clothing Be it local retailer, or international vender, there are politics
boutiques as far as Mexico. around clothing purchases, from the messages adorned on
Local artists, art school graduates, and socially con- the front to the way the company is operated. Keep this in
scious fashionistas are trying to make businesses, and con- —s mind when you next wander the boutiques of the city, and
vey a message, with their preferred medium: clothing. maybe even drop a few dollars and outfit yourself with
“T think this is a concept that just snaps with a lot of some locally made, socially conscious clothing.

young people,” says Andy Webb as he steps out of

 

  

Gary Penny Recalls the Early Days of the Gay Rights Sa

By Seth Cooper, The Martlet
But he persevered, lending his entrepreneurial savvy to

VICTORIA (CUP)—Gary Penny remembers when the the fledgling event every year. :
word “gay” wasn’t a part of his vocabulary. “T got them into thinking of Pride as a business,” says ©
“T didn’t even know the word [as it’s used today],” says Penny. He and his partner Brian moved to Victoria and

Penny. “You'd hear the word ‘gearbox’ in high school.” opened Prism nightclub in 2001. In 2004 Penny was wel-

Now 65, Penny owns the only gay bar in Victoria, B.C. | comed back to Vancouver as a marshal in the same pride
He has been fighting for gay rights for decades, long parade, which is now sponsored by dozens of businesses
before recent coups such as same-sex marriage. In fact, at and draws over 185,000 people.
age 18, when he first wandered into a Toronto nightclub Despite the success that Penny has had with events
for gays, strict laws against sodomy were still in place in such as Pride, he feels that owning a gay business brings
Canada. him closer to his goal of bringing homosexuality to the

“Tt was still illegal being gay,’ he remembers. forefront of the community on a daily basis.

Penny worked at five discreet gay nightclubs in Toronto “Making homosexuality commonplace will let us live a

during the 1960s, both as a DJ and as a lighting technician. _ normal life... [Having gay businesses] is a way to inte-
It was not until he ventured into nightclub management _ grate,” he says. “I totally believe in integration.”

 

that he began to bring gay businesses out of the closet. In He feels that this philosophy of integration accounts
1970, Penny negotiated Canada’s first liquor license for a for the slight drop in attendance at gay nightclubs since
gay business, a nightclub called Studio 5-11. the 1980s — and he thinks this is a good thing.

Penny eventually migrated to Vancouver in 1979, and “Gay people will go to ‘straight’ places now too,” says
began to change the cultural landscape of a city that wasn’t Penny. “There’s less segregation.” hopes to see the end of Pride in his lifetime, or at least the
particularly known for its gay scene. Penny has witnessed the very same phenomenon need to hold such events.

In addition to opening several Vancouver-area gay bars among the clientele at Prism, approximately 30 per cent of “T hope the day will come when we don’t have to have
and nightclubs over the years, he has also involved himself | whom he speculates are heterosexual. Pride Day,” says Penny. “Pride holds a function right now,
in a staggering number of annual gay-oriented events in “[Gay bars] get a good percentage of straight people. I and it’s an important function. Pride makes people aware
both Vancouver and Victoria. In 1979 he sat on the board _— don’t ask anybody about their sexuality when they walk in of the numbers.”
of the Vancouver Pride Society and helped to organize the door, and neither do my employees. What right do I Penny has good reason to believe that this day will
Vancouver's second pride festival. At the time, the parade have to ask someone their sexual orientation? It’s none of | come, but he doesn’t plan on sitting around until then.
drew only 300 people. my business.” “T’m like a cowboy,” says Penny. “T’ll die with my boots

“T can remember walking down the street having eggs And although Penny was once again involved in both on.”
thrown at me,” says Penny. Vancouver’s and Victoria’s Pride festivals this year, he

opnewseditor@gmail.com 5