Stepping into a Samuel Vartan dress is a transporting experience.
Nevermind that one is perhaps, as I was, in his studio near the Fresh
Pond Mall on a dark and dingy winter’s day. In the brilliant red
floor-length dress, I was strolling down the gangway to a friend’s yacht
for an evening gala off of Santorini. The warm breeze on my face, I
smiled into the sunset, until I opened my eyes and remembered that I was
in Boston. In March.
Stepping into a Samuel Vartan dress is a transporting experience.
But one can always pretend—and one will want to, as soon as one sees
the Samuel Vartan Collections, designed by Samuel Vartan Bizdikian, who
has been a Boston resident for the last decade. Born in Athens in 1960
to Armenian parents, Vartan lived there until age six, when his family
relocated to Beirut where his father studied at the American university
and the Near East School of Theology. The family left Beirut in 1968,
giving up a likely position for his father at the highly regarded
Haigazian University, and immigrated to Montreal, Canada, where Vartan’s
aunt and uncle were living. Vartan says he remembers there being
“around 150 to 200 people, who had come to dissuade my father from
going… The plan was I think to stay for 5 years and then leave.
Obviously, as everyone knows, he did the right thing because a few years
later, you know, it was just a nightmare there. ”
The move to Montreal turned out to be fortuitous in another way; the
family’s arrival there in October 1968 is what Vartan considers now to
have been his second birth. “Montreal really really really defines who I
am, not only as a designer but as a person. I’m very proud of the fact
that I was born in Greece, because I do love Greece and I’ve been there
often, but growing up during your key years in a city like Montreal is a
real gift.”
A model wearing one of Samuel Vartan’s designs.
The thriving, European-influenced city provided the perfect
environment for Vartan to explore his artistic interests. Majoring in
film and communications at Dawson College, Vartan left his studies just
before graduating. Consistently involved in the Montreal music scene,
Vartan attributes his love of music to his family. “Our parents sang to
us every night to sleep so we were all musically very well ear-trained.
You know, we did the whole thing, we sang in the church choir, we were
like the Armenian Von Trapp family.” During this time, Vartan also
created many prize-winning short films and dabbled in stop-motion and 3D
animation. “There was a point in my life, I think in the 80s probably
the most, where there were several times I really felt like I was on top
of the world because it was just so amazing to be alive and living in
Montreal… It was a great city to express yourself, in many ways.”
Part-time work in a hospital and a popular clothing store, “Le
Chateau,” provided him with the financial stability to pursue various
avenues of artistic expression. Almost by accident, he discovered his
interest in fashion design when he went fabric shopping with a friend
from a rival band. When another friend opened a leather shop in the
city, Vartan designed a few jackets for him, which sold well. The owner
of a popular cafe then asked Vartan to design the outfits for its staff.
One project led to another until Samuel Vartan Collections was
registered in 1998 and incorporated in 2000.
Meanwhile, Vartan’s life was changing in other exciting ways.
Unknowingly, he’d already crossed paths several times with his future
wife, Kiky Papadopoulos, whose cousins were friends of his. After a long
distance friendship and frequent phone conversations between Boston and
Montreal, she visited him in Montreal and they were engaged in 2002.
The couple married in 2003, and Vartan relocated to Boston, where his
son Alexander Vartan was born in 2006.
Samuel Vartan at a fashion show.
For two years Vartan sold his designs from a stand-alone boutique in
Brighton, which attracted the attention of the local press. “I opened it
knowing that I would close it within two years. My sole purpose was to
have a boutique where people could see the way the clothes should be
displayed, in the right setting.” Currently, the Samuel Vartan
Collections are distributed to free-standing, high-end boutiques
throughout the U.S. and Canada by his representatives at the Christina
K. Pierce boutique fashion agency. Although generally a wholesaler, his
designs are occasionally available for purchase by individuals. While he
has no concrete plans yet for another stand-alone store, Vartan says he
hopes to open a flagship store in Montreal or New York in the future.
For the time being, he does not see a Boston store in his plans, citing
the city’s need to increase support for local designers. “There needs to
be a lot more unity here…amongst designers, stores, the media. In
Montreal, if you want to put on a show, people jump in, saying, ‘How can
we help?’ So they’re into it, into discovering new talent. Here, they
do fashion shows based on boutiques that carried names that were already
household names like Chanel, Armani, or whatever, Donna Karan. They do a
fashion show, but who’s Boston’s voice? What are you doing about the
local talent?’ ”
Vartan’s line includes the spring/summer “Mediterraneo” and
winter/fall “Dark City” collections. The Mediterraneo designs are warm
and light, influenced by the mild climates of Greece, Italy, and Spain,
whilst the Dark City collection channels the atmosphere of an urban
European underground. Vartan attributes his aesthetics to a variety of
influences, including Art Deco style, actresses from the 1950’s and
1960’s, and even the film “Blade Runner.” The essential goal of his line
is always to create designs that respect women and their bodies and
that embody an effortless, flowing elegance. Dismayed by the tendency in
the fashion industry to focus only on very thin women, he designs his
clothing for all figures, explaining, “There is no right size. It
doesn’t exist.”
Designing is a complex process, beginning with the sketch of an idea,
dissected into a pattern that is then modeled with life-sized paper
cutouts that hang from racks like disembodied paper dolls. Created first
with a test fabric and tried on by a model, the design is tweaked until
the desired result is achieved, and the final product is manufactured
with high-quality fabric and becomes a part of the collection. While the
majority of Vartan’s designs are for women, he does design some men’s
clothing and plans to expand his men’s collection in the future.
When not designing in his studio, Vartan is occupied with photo
shoots, interviews, and mentoring his many interns. He also speaks at
schools from time to time and is very active in the Boston area Armenian
community. He serves on the committee of the Armenian Business Network
and is a member of the Knights of Vartan. He places huge importance on
Armenians working as a community and contributing to it however they
can, and envisions a bright future for what he describes as a resilient,
survivalist people who thrive on laughter. His focus is positive and
forward-looking; while he recognizes the need for acknowledgment of
Armenia’s history and the crimes against it, he cautions against letting
this need become all-consuming. “Genocide does define us to a certain
extent, but it’s not the end of who the Armenians are and where we’re
going… In my own way, I would just want my Armenian friends, community,
and new families through my work to understand that being Armenian is a
lot more than just owning a piece of land that says ‘Armenia.’ It starts
in the heart, it starts in your upbringing, and also in the faith that
you believe in… But I want us to be happy Armenians, and not bitter,
like a lot of other cultures are still to this day about their history.
Of course, a genocide is a terrible thing for anybody to experience or
to go through, but if you don’t move on, you’ll become a thing of the
past, and you’ll be part of the dust of the earth. That’s exactly what I
don’t want my Armenian nation, my people, to become.”
And in the spirit of moving on, there is much on the horizon for
Samuel Vartan Collections. The collections expand in response to demand,
which has been growing consistently since Vartan’s first designs for
friends in Montreal. Eschewing what he sees as cheap fame-chasing, he
has refused several invitations to appear on Project Runway, preferring
to let his work speak for itself.
His next Boston fashion show will be on June 20 at the Liberty Hotel
in Boston, and his collections will be showcased during New York’s
fashion week in September. More information about these events and the
collections featured can be found at
www.samuelvartan.com.
