Fashion designer Michael Kaye wants Nunavut to choose a tartan -- any tartan -- so he can fulfill his dream
Nunavut's clash of the tartans is over. Earlier this week, we told you about two rival candidates for the northern territory's official plaid. One is backed by a local Scots-Canadian named Donald Mearns. The other was instigated by fashion designer Michael Kaye, who is creating a line of dresses out of Canada's official tartans. Now the two men have formed...
Nunavut's clash of the tartans is over. Earlier this week, we told you about two rival candidates for the northern territory's official plaid. One is backed by a local Scots-Canadian named Donald Mearns. The other was instigated by fashion designer Michael Kaye, who is creating a line of dresses out of Canada's official tartans. Now the two men have formed an alliance.
Yesterday, Kaye called Mearns and they agreed they had a common cause. "It went really, swimmingly well. I'm not tied to any particular tartan," Kaye tells Carol. "Whatever becomes the official tartan of Nunavut, will be the one that I go with."
Fashion designer Michael Kaye a.k.a. "The Bonnie Prince of Tartan."
Kaye explains that the plaid linked with him is one that was created by a tartan company after he contacted them to let them know that one needed to be made.
The designer is anxious for Nunavut to get a tartan so that he can compete his dream project. He's creating a line of dresses in the official tartans of each of Canada's provinces and territories, as well as the country's national tartan.
"This missing link to the whole project is there is no Nunavut," Kaye says.
Some of Michael Kaye's tartan-based designs.
After speaking with Mearns, he has now revised his plans for the Nunavut gown. Kaye hopes to include bead work by artisans in the territory, as well as seal skin.
Kaye is known as the "Bonnie Prince of Tartan." It's his signature fabric -- even though he's got no Scottish blood.
"It's just a love that I have," he says, "It started back in 1975 on a fifth-grade trip to the Alberta legislative building. I learned then that Alberta had a tartan and it was emblazoned in my mind -- tartan. It spoke to me."
A tartan gown by Michael Kaye in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute.
Time is running out for Kaye. He wants to complete his line of Canadian tartan dresses for the country's 150th anniversary in 2017. So he's told Mearns he'll do whatever he can to push the territorial government to pick a tartan -- any tartan. He'll even go to Nunavut in person.
"I think it would be an excellent adventure," he says.