Myles Sexton
Toronto-based model, makeup artist and designer Myles Sexton is notorious for pushing the boundaries between male and female, beautiful and bizarre. Sexton and I get up close and personal to discuss the triumphs of his present and the challenges of his past.
READ THE IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW BELOW!
Slam Poet Diana Itebu
Igho Diana Itebu fell
in love with poetry at an early age. Fascinated by relationships and how habits
intertwine in our lines of communication, Diana has channeled her ideas through
the notorious Slam, an impassioned poetic presentation that challenges the
classical structure of verse. I caught up with Diana to pick her brain about
her life, inspirations and the structure of Slam.
How long
have you been writing, performing and participating in Slam?
In the seventh grade I had a really quirky teacher who made us
do journal entries for about 20 minutes every day. A lot of my classmates hated
it but I really got into it. That's when I realized I liked writing. And it
just became a habit. I started actually performing and quickly became an avid
slam attendee at 18.
When did you
first develop an interest in slam poetry? What were some major inspirations for
you?
I got introduced into the Slam world through a friend of a
friend: Kelsey Savage. I went to my first poetry slam at Cafe Deux Soliels in
Vancouver and I was hooked. The whole energy/vibe in the room that night was
electric. I loved every minute of it.
Two experiences that have stood out to me at a slam: 1) the
first time I witnessed Kelsey Savage perform an 'improv' piece at Café Deux
Soleils (she got on stage, asked an audience member for a prompt and came up
with a poem in the spot.) I was floored. 2) Watching Rudy Francisco perform at
The Drake Underground in Toronto. He reminded me of Joshua Bennett (my absolute
favorite spoken word artist I've discovered so far.) I just remember thinking,
“Man, everyone needs to get hip to Rudy Francisco!”
Describe
your first experience on stage, or an impactful experience you had performing
for others.
My first experience on stage was actually at a high school
speech meet. I read Sojourner Truth's speech 'Ain't I A Woman.' The judges were
so impressed I ended up having to perform it again in front of a lot more
people than I ever imagined. I remember being nervous as hell but as soon as I
started speaking I wasn't anymore. To this day I still feel sick to my stomach
before any performance, forever nervous until I utter the first word.
How do you
consider slam poetry different (or the same) from other kinds of poetry? What
sets the genre and the slam night experience apart from other modes of
performance and sharing?
Writing is a very personal experience to me. The way I see it,
the process of writing is like you making dinner for yourself, no recipe just
straight from your dome. Slamming is basically inviting a bunch of people into
your home and sharing your dinner with them. Does that make sense? Slamming is
an extension of writing poetry.
How you define your style of work and yourself as a writer and performer? What
subject matter is important or influential to you?
I write a lot about relationships; more specifically human
interactions in different types of relationships. I'm intrigued by the
differences and similarities in familial and non-familial relationships; how
habits overlap and intertwine in our lines of communication in these
relationships. When I was younger a lot of my poems were vulgar and usually
filled with a plethora of sexual innuendos because I wanted to be more
relatable. My style has changed a little now. My poems are a little more
personal but far less sexual. I've definitely written a poem or two about every
guy I've dated and sometimes I've gone as far as writing about an ex’s
relationship with their parents. My ultimate goal as a performer is to be
relatable to at least one audience member.
What makes a
slam poem successful? What makes it not as successful?
You can tell when someone has written a poem just for the sake
of getting high scores. It’s really awkward to watch sometimes. A slam is
essentially a competition but it's never meant to take away from the art. As
long as you've written or are performing a piece that at least one person in
the audiences can relate to, to me that's a successful poem.
For Girls
I’ve heard
I’ve heard stories of girls,
used and abused by the men they love most
And since I’ve been
hearing about these stories
So as a kid I never wanted
to grow up, yet I called myself the grown ass kid And I always wanted to dance
but daddy didn't want me getting too attched,
He said:
And I’ve been lucky
compared to the girls in these stories
I re-tell these stories
about these girls
And,
Igho Diana Itebu fell in love with poetry at an early age. Fascinated by relationships and how habits intertwine in our lines of communication, Diana has channeled her ideas through the notorious Slam, an impassioned poetic presentation that challenges the classical structure of verse. I caught up with Diana to pick her brain about her life, inspirations and the structure of Slam.
Gettin' Tight with Tight Club
Keighty Gallagher is the founder Tight Club, a Vancouver-based alternative fitness program with an inventive, street-smart sensibility. Since its insemination in 2011, Tight Club has become a local treasure, a beloved buzzword among artists, designers, musicians and servers within Vancouver’s creative east side. Her DIY approach, use of urban settings, themed events and funny flyers set her apart from more commercial fitness programs in the city. Gallagher proves to her clients that "You don't have to be a jock to be tight!"
This past summer, Tight Club collaborated with active wear behemoth Lululemon to create a slick capsule collection of workout gear that would appeal to a niche market. Two worlds collided – a multi-million dollar corporation and a sweet local start-up – resulting in a line made up of neutral black, grey and white tanks, t-shirts, shorts and the highlight piece, a sleeveless hoody with “Tight” branded across the chest in reflective lettering. Tight Club, and Keighty, had inadvertently become a muse of sorts, and the results have sent both parties soaring to new heights.
I caught up with Gallagher to get all the deets on her, Tight Club and that surprising relationship with one of the industry's most powerful forces.
Where were you born?
In a little town at the bottom of a mountain on Vancouver Island
- Courtenay, British Columbia.
Describe your
upbringing and early years.
From the time I was born until the day I left for university in
2006, I grew up as a keener kid whose dreams were to go to the Olympics in Track
and Field and live somewhere that grew palm trees.
I grew up on my family farm with horses, chickens, a few dogs
and a cat-infested barn. I was spoiled by how close the mountains and the beaches
were and spent my winters lurking Mt. Washington with my Dad and my summers at
Saratoga beach.
Describe your history
with athletics (track and field), fitness etc.
In kindergarten I would race the tallest boy from our portable classroom
to the bus line. Sometimes he’d win, sometimes he’d lose. Fast forward 5 years and I decided to go to the local field to practice
“sprinting on a track” before my first elementary school track meet. There were
some practice hurdles set up and I jumped over one…terribly.
The coach told me to leave, but said that I should join the
track team when I turned 11.
Five years later I attended my first World Youth Championships
and two years later went to my second. Traveling the world and competing at
that level scared the f--k out of me! But I was into it!
Can you talk about the
shift from your education in Marketing to fitness training? What
prompted that decision? Also, please name all the programs you took
and the years/locations where you completed them.
The next year I transferred to Portland State University,
eventually obtaining a Bachelors of Science with a double major in Marketing
and Advertising. Life ruled in Portland, and four years later I was given the
notice to return to my home country in Canada and start living the hustler’s
life.
The shift into fitness came when my contract was up
as a marketing assistant at a local social media company. I was faced with a
big decision. I guess I was going through an identity crisis because I was a hot
second away from packing my bags and embarking on an epic “find myself” trip. Then
one day I met this boy who changed my life [Henry
Barros is now Keighty’s live-in partner and collaborator.]
Three months later I was enrolled in a personal training
certification program and was organizing weekly group workouts with friends
I worked with at the Alibi Room, a restaurant in Gastown, Vancouver.
Give me a bit of
history of Tight Club. The inception of the idea, the concept, how it
changed/evolved over time. Early stages, gaining a following, collaborating
with others (cooks, nutritionists etc.)
The early ages of Tight Club was pretty scrappy. Every Friday
I’d start my day texting my friends, trying to rally their butts down to Andy
Livingston Park to try out this “fun” workout I had designed. What was cool was
that these people weren’t your typical gym rats. For my first group workout I
led a soft-spoken fashion designer, a ceramics artist (with clay stained tights
to add), a writer and a server. No one identified themselves as the “workout
type” but were open to the idea that being fit was a good thing. Their openness
allowed me to experiment with the language I used as I figured out queues to
help them better their form and posture, making the workouts super goofy and
fun.
Word spread that I was leading a fun class, but moreover, that I
was getting some pretty influential people in the Vancouver creative scene together
to sweat. I began to realize that you don’t have to be a jock to be fit, which
is the whole idea behind Tight Club.
Tight Club is a lifestyle for individuals who value active
bodies, creative minds, and balanced lives. You don't have to be a jock to be tight!
As the weather changed from great to gross, I started playing
around with different spaces to use as well as the idea of adding another class
to the mix. My Friday afternoon OG class was great, but my 9 to 5’er friends
wanted a chance to get tight as well. So I introduced my Wednesday night “Tight
Club Night Club” class, and chose a meeting spot at Strathcona park. It was
great in the fall because the sun stayed up until late, but as the winter grew
upon us, it was clear we needed to find a sheltered space with light.
What’s tight about Tight Club is that you don’t need much to
work out with. My workouts are designed to be as challenging as you want to make
it. Using your own body weight, gravity, and natural outdoor features as
measures of intensity, I was able to find the perfect space to keep Tight Club
alive during the winter: under the Cambie Street bridge!
My tag line, “We do it in the rain” proved to be a true
statement last year, with almost every single workout ending in rain. But
people kept on coming!
Eventually I put together a website so people could get a hold
of me and find out my schedule, and after a year and a half of annoying my friends
with text reminders, I celebrated my first “no text” workout with a packed
class. The word was spreading and I was stoked!
As the year went on, I started flexing my marketing muscles, and
made some strategic connections with some likeminded individuals in the health
and fitness industry. I repped my friend Christina Culver’s salad business
hard, getting her super salads delivered to my class after every workout. From
the concept of providing a double service, a secondary business was born: The
Tight Life. An all-inclusive program that enrolls you in a fitness class as
well as a structured nutrition plan that feeds you after your workouts. Boom. Carley
Mendes of Keep it Real Foods was the brainchild behind the concept, and we
launched the challenge in June, selling out within the week!
You have a live-in
studio now. Tell me more about that.
So that boy I mentioned earlier [Henry]...well, I ended up
moving in with him. We found this beautiful coach house with an alley entrance
in the Strathcona neighbourhood, and it happened to have a yoga studio built into
the garage. It was fate!
We moved there in February and after accumulating some equipment,
I started inviting my personal training clients over to “The Coach House.” It
was pretty awesome getting a little break from the rain and cold last spring,
and as I got used to working in a smaller space than I was used to, I started
running parts of my Tight Club classes from the studio.
Obviously your
marketing and communications skills have contributed a lot to the success of
Tight Club.
I’m pretty basic when it comes to advertising. Social media and
word-of-mouth marketing were the cheapest and most effective channels to reach my
targeted audience, and so I started designing some pretty funny flyers and
tagging friends who had completed the workouts in them. I wanted to communicate
the message that Tight Club was fun and not too serious, and I think the online
posters really helped.
Over the winter I was super-inspired by the Nike “Run In the Dark”
campaign, so I put a funny twist on exercising when it’s shitty outside.
Messages like “We do it in the rain” or “Lets get wet” helped
bring a little lightness to the idea of working out when it’s gross out. The
season shouldn’t dictate your activity level.
When and how did you
get involved with Lululemon as their fit model? Describe that role, a “day in
the life of” and tell me a bit about your work-related travels.
That’s actually kind of a funny story! I was taking a ceramics
class last summer and was introduced to a Lululemon designer who was in the class
as well. They were super short on fit models and were looking for a size 8. I
had no idea what a fit model did but I saw it as a great opportunity to meet
some active people and possibly get some more clients.
The “day in the life” of a fit model is always different depending
on the time of the season. The busiest time is when the samples are coming in
the factories and the design team is trying to make sure the garments fit
perfectly. Something unique to Lululemon is that the designers actually bring their
fit models overseas with them to the factories. That was definitely the selling
point when I found out we got to travel. This year I have been lucky enough to
visit Taipei, Sri Lanka, Singapore, and Hong Kong four times.
It’s not all glitz and glamour though. We are put up in nice
hotels with the expectation that with comfort and rest comes effective feedback
and immense attention to detail. We’re not just human dummies. We have to know
the brand, know the products consistency, and be able to speak not on behalf of
our own style, but with the Lululemon “muse” in mind.
One of the most interesting parts of getting to go onsite is
getting to know the different cultures of the countries. The Sri Lankans are probably
the warmest and most hospitable people I have ever met! They definitely take
the term “host” to another level.
How did the idea of a
Tight Club/Lululemon collaboration come about? Where did the idea come from?
I was in the middle of a fitting when this super-babe entered
the room, Jean Okada, the head women’s designer at the Lululemon Lab. The first
thing she said when she saw me was, “Hey, you’re the Tight Club girl!”
A few months later, Jean pushed for a Tight Club inspired
clothing capsule collection, complete with a launch party, video production and
photo shoot. It was the biggest dream come true to see how much she believed in
the project, which made me work even harder to keep the momentum up!
Tell me about the
early design stages: focus groups, inspirations, trends and the development of
the capsule collection.
To help the designers understand Tight Club, they invited eight
of us to come over for a sushi + sake dinner party to talk about what we wear
when we sweat. I was super impressed to see how diverse the crowd was. There
were people who typically wore comfortable street clothes to workout in, as
well as the Stella McCartney kitted out babe. No one was afraid to talk about
how much they liked or hated Lululemon and were able to articulate their
reasons respectfully. We were asked to bring our favorite article of workout
clothing and right away it was apparent that colour wasn’t something we were
interested in. Blacks, greys and whites, monochromatic patterns and various classic
terry cloth fabrics were showcased in our group.
A few weeks later, Jean emailed me the design line-up and I
couldn’t believe my eyes! It was everything I wanted to own in my own active
wear wardrobe. Not looking like a flashed-out jock, these were pieces I could seamlessly
wear to a workout and head to the bar afterwards. We produced a women’s tank, bra
and tight, a unisex t-shirt, unisex short and the highlight piece was a boxing-inspired
sleeveless hoodie with “Tight” written across the chest in reflective material.
We introduced the line with a launch party and the debut of our
video and photo show. It blew my mind to see how many people came out for it.
It was like the best surprise birthday ever!
Do you consider yourself
a muse for the design team at Lululemon?
Describe that
experience, of being a kind of muse or source of inspiration for a big company.
Do you feel that it’s a symbiosis, in that you inspire them and they inspire
you?
I’ve heard that term “muse” thrown around loosely at the Lab.
Since I’m not your typical yogi girl (in fact, I don’t do yoga at all) I am constantly
inspired by the work the designers are doing at the lab. They are taking a yoga
centric company and are creating beautiful and functional street wear, all
while connecting with the community. I don’t know if I inspire them, but they
sure as shit inspire me!
What do you see in the
future for yourself, Tight Club and your
relationship with
Lululemon?
2014 is going to be a big hard year! I’ve gotta keep the
momentum going that was built over the summer and I’m not really sure what will
come next. I’m going to have to continue to get people stoked on getting it
wet, having fun while exercising, and knowing that just because you exercise,
doesn’t mean that you’re a jock!
Stay tuned to see what Tight Club will be up to this winter :)
For more information on Tight Club please check out their website HERE.
For more information on Tight Club please check out their website HERE.
No comments:
Post a Comment