It's the days leading up to Montréal Grand Prix and designer Caroline Constas is being fêted the by the luxury Canadian department store, Holt Renfrew, at their annual Grand Prix event.
She enters the party being held at the top floor of the Ritz Carlton, her statuesque framed draped in a long, white, strapless goddess-gown of her own design. Earlier in the day, she posted a photo of herself with her collection's display at the store with a caption that read, "Dreams to come true.”
For Constas, this year's Grand Prix event is not only a dream come true, but it's also a homecoming of sorts. Being honored by the department store coincides with the Montréal native's 5th of year in business at the helm of her namesake label.
"I've been dreaming of working with them [Holt Renfrew] for years and years because growing up in Montréal, that was the place you aspired to shop,” she says.
As a young fashion brand, to stay in business in a cutthroat industry after 5 years is, indeed, recognition-worthy. Constas, however, has done more than just stay in business—her brand is thriving, and the Holt Renfrew event is an acknowledgment of her success.
Her collection's whimsical-yet-elegant vibe is directly inspired by Constas' upbringing and globetrotting lifestyle, which is marked by life in New York, summers in Greece and inspiration trips to foreign countries.
"It started when I was 8 years old, and I was traveling to Greece every summer to visit family,” she says. She is the daughter of a Greek-Lebanese father and an American mother who, through these visits, exposed her to the world from a very young age.
During her childhood travels, she found herself sketching the clothes she wanted to wear on her holidays, and over time she became aware of the keen eye she possessed for spotting trends that crossed borders.
"I was always very focused and aware of fashion and how fashion differed, and how it was similar across different cultures. I was able to see what was overlapping between different countries,” she says.
A key factor to her success is that Constas herself is the ultimate muse for her brand—she knows her customer because she is her customer. "I start each season with the question: What do I want to wear that isn't in the market?” she says, admitting she is designing for herself first and foremost, knowing that women like herself will gravitate to what she's offering.
In addition, Constas is regularly featured on her company's social media in her designs and also posts pictures and musings from her personal travels. Images of her wearing her label bring the clothes to life in a way only she can, and the content, as a result, is a physical embodiment of the Caroline Constas brand story. She is undoubtedly one of her company's biggest assets.
In the beginning days of her label, it was this idea of creating clothes for her own personal lifestyle led to the creation of the Lou top, the design that put her name on the map.
Constas had always been searching for cotton shirting in feminine shapes and came up with an off the shoulder silhouette in a blue striped fabric traditionally used for dress shirts. An editor came in to view the collection, snapped a pic of the shirt and posted it to social media, which then led to Oprah's stylist pulling the shirt for a shoot. The next thing she knew, the Lou top was on the cover of O Magazine. "It was absolutely surreal,” the designer says of the experience.
