This text is part of the special book Plaisirs
Wool is making a strong comeback both in the world of fashion and in homes, where knitting is no longer considered an old-fashioned activity, quite the contrary! Handling needles is seen as a great opportunity to clear your mind, forget your little worries, and simply enjoy a moment of zen. To be convinced of this, nothing better than to discuss it with Francine Vandelac, who, from the 1960s, brought the art of knitting to the top of the Quebec market and who signed an exhibition presented until February 2003 at the Diane-Dufresne Art Center. The duty spoke with her.
Where does your passion for wool come from?
When I took home economics classes, at school, we learned to sew and knit; I hated that! We were made to make such ugly things: socks, mittens… In the early 1960s, I started a course at the Institute of Applied Arts in Montreal, in interior design. We were coming out of the Quiet Revolution. It was the time when Mary Quant launched the miniskirt, the time of the Beatles who came to Montreal. We were in this excitement that led us to have fun, to get out of the frame. I was in love with a student of the School of commercial trades in haute couture. For his final exam, he had decided to make my prom dress. I spent hours in the workshops and I was thrilled. I started making knitwear to wear with a miniskirt and I made some for my friends. And I went from interior design to fashion, which turned me on a lot more. So I signed up for a haute couture class in Montreal.
How did your entrepreneurial career begin?
I became an entrepreneur by default. In knitting, there was not much in those days. A friend who sold her dresses in a store offered me a little corner to sell my sweaters. That’s how I started, and it lasted until the late 1960s. There, I opened my own shop on Crescent Street. My mother and my two elderly great-aunts loved crocheting, they were my first knitters. But doing business with the public is slavery. What interested me was creation. I decided to have my models made in the workshop and to sell them in luxury boutiques, like Holt Renfrew. It opened the American market to me. My baby was handmade; I didn’t want my creations to be reproduced in thousands of copies. I always managed to change one or two details so that they were always different. Of all the designers at the time, I was the only one who worked exclusively with knitting and I stayed that way.
What attracts you so much to knitwear?
I like its texture, and I especially like its flexible side. When you wear it on your body, it moves, it lives. It’s not rigid. It’s comfortable, like a second skin. We put that in a suitcase; it doesn’t wrinkle. There are so many possibilities with a hook or knitting needles; you can do a hundred million things! Everything is allowed, there is no limit. The patterns, the stitches are so diverse. I invented several, and I pushed techniques further, like that of aqua-film. On a sheet of cellulose, we work the wool, then we weave seams with large stitches to give an artistic effect. You put that in water, the cellulose melts and the knit stays. There is always a surprise at the end; that’s what interests me. It is a job that allows you to play with the wool. My passion is to create, to innovate; not to manufacture.
How do you see the return of knitting today?
For the past few years, knitwear has been coming back more and more, whereas it had disappeared in the 2000s. During the pandemic, people stayed at home and took up knitting. I know a lot of men who do that. For some people, it’s a hobby; for others, it’s a way to release stress. Like almost all manual work, it is an almost meditative activity. And noble. I often say that I took knitting out of the domestic world and gave it back its letters of nobility.
Tight knit: journey of an interwoven life
This special content was produced by the Special Publications team of the To have to, pertaining to marketing. The drafting of To have to did not take part.