Adhesif Clothing Company
VANDOCUMENT's Yvonne Chew reconnects with sustainable fashion designer Melissa Ferreira at Car Free Day
Words and photos by Yvonne Chew
At Car Free Day on Main Street last Sunday, I was happy to find Melissa Ferreira, designer and owner of Adhesif Clothing Company.
Melissa is a face from my past who I have been following in the local Vancouver fashion scene since I met her in 2008 at Vancouver Fashion Week. This year, Adhesif is celebrating ten years in business.
Ever since seeing Melissa’s work for the first time, I have admired her art of reclaiming vintage fabrics and refurbishing them into beautiful ready-to-wear clothing.
Her work fuses classic styles from the roaring twenties to glamorous fifties and sixties, embracing remnants of past eras and imbuing them with youthfulness and play for the present day. Rich colours and vibrant patterns often play off each other in her clothing.
Thanks to her use of sustainable materials, Melissa is a well-known figure in the eco fashion world. I had the privilege of seeing her and photographing her work at Eco Fashion Week in 2011 (blog post and photos here)
Melissa also makes beautiful headbands and jewelry out of materials and treasures that she finds and salvages.
I fell in love with a piece of her jewelry that had a little birch scroll tied in a tiny bottle. Melissa said that the scroll was a piece of bark from a birch tree she passed everyday which looked like it had a face with eyes and a smile. Stories like that resonate with me; little artifacts like these make her jewelry unique to wear.
Melissa owns the Adhesif Clothing store at 2202 Main Street where she also sells other local designers’ works as well.
It was delightful to see Melissa Ferreira and browse through the many treasures in the Adhesif tent on Car Free Day. I love her beautiful eye for creating wearable treasures.
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For more info about
Adhesif Clothing
adhesifclothing.com
Vancouver Fashion Week
vanfashionweek.com
Eco Fashion Week
ecofashion-week.com
eco fashion / sustainable fashion
wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_fashion
Car Free Day
carfreevancouver.org
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