There are many ways the average Canadian would describe fashion designer Jessica Biffi, one might be reality T.V. star, another might be LG Fashion week runway designer, but after an hour long chat with the rising star herself, it became immediately clear that adorable, funny, and genuinely kind would be equally appropriate.
It was a crisp November afternoon and eager to meet this inspiring 26 year-old I arrived at the Starbucks on Queen and John in Toronto, 20 minutes early. I was immediately surprised when I saw Biffi already sitting at a table. She looked like her usual edgy yet humble self; Sunglasses on her head, pin-straight bangs and piercings in her chin, eyebrow and tongue. Aware of the fact that she had no idea what I looked like I immediately went up to her. “Hi it is so nice to finally meet you,” she said, as if she was equally excited to meet me, as I was she.
I sat down and like we had known each other for years she began telling me about her life.
“My mother was a seamstress, so that stuff was always around me, she just never showed me how to sow” Biffi said when asked if designing had always been her passion.
“I was always drawing dresses and clothes, but when I was younger, I didn’t realize that what I was doing was designing.”
She always knew that Ryerson’s Fashion program was the place she wanted to be, and so straight out of high school she left her mother and younger brother in Guelph Ont. And headed to the big city.
“Ryerson worked me to the bone, I cried a lot first year,” she said, but it all paid off when after being turned down for the first season, Biffi got the phone call that she knew would change her life.
“They told me I was going to be part of the cast for Project Runway Canada and I was like oh my god.”
She explained that after signing a very serious contract Project Runway simply became a bunch of secrets. She couldn’t tell anyone that she was on the show or that she had made top three, so she told her friends that she was going on a five week trip to Portugal, and headed to Ottawa to begin filming.
After project runway happened, life for Biffi just kept getting better and better, and her career was clearly moving upward at a very fast pace. She applied to be one of the 38 designers to show at the 2009 LG Fashion Week in Toronto, and was informed immediately to begin getting her collection ready.
“I wanted to make a statement with my show, I knew that a lot of my pieces were not wearable to the average person, but I wanted people to keep talking about it after the show was over,” she said.
And talk they did, after the show was finished Biffi was flooded with people wanting to buy her designs and an offer to design for Spring 2010 Fashion Week. But none of that budged her overwhelmingly humble and kind personality.
“I taught her for first and second year and I was always impressed first and for-most by her personality, she was always bubbly, and very people friendly,” said Paulette Kelly, a professor in the Fashion program and Ryerson University.
Kelly remembers Biffi as someone that always stood out in the program, and believed that as well as having a great personality she was also very talented.
“I absolutely loved working with Jessica, sometimes when I work with designers I get a little intimidated because of their status in the industry but she made me feel comfortable right away,” said Marshall Williams, Ford model from Toronto who worked with Jessica on one of her first runway shows.
Being in the fashion industry can sometimes force people to push and shove in order to make their way to the top, but Biffi has always made being personable priority number one.
“I have always just been myself, and now that I am in the fashion industry, I am not going to change that.”
xo
K
