Patience might as well be DONN SABEAN’s middle name. As a textile artist, she uses a sustainable but painstakingly slow process known as Eco Printing, using leaves, and ocean or rainwater to handprint and hand-dye silks. She uses her own textiles as well as re-purposed silks from vintage saris to create fluid, romantic, even poetic one-of-a-kind women’s garments—including bespoke kimonos and dreamy scarves. Her style offers a unique take for this year’s Cashmere Collection. Currently, this BFA alum of NSCAD sells only out of her Halifax studio and at local shows. 

Halifax-based designer and textile artist DONN SABEAN focused on the contrast between the “hyper-feminine forms” of the Belle Epoque leisure class (see her gown’s lovely swirled and flounced skirt) and the emergence of an independent working woman strata (see the meticulous tailoring of the abstract shirt-collar-and-tie bodice). As the “pristine white surface begged for a bit of text,” Donn added quotations throughout her garment, in pink, in breast cancer pink ink, that speak to courage and strength shown in the face of adversity, from the likes of Clare Booth Luce, Louisa May Alcott, Ernest Hemingway and Ghandi.

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