Archives: a time machine
- Jan 31
- 2 min read
Quebec City under the snow, between Christmas and New Year’s. My mother had been waiting for my return to give me a major task: sorting through my archives. Since leaving, I have never again had the chance to live in a hundred square meters. I had to leave my past somewhere safe. Two large boxes had been cluttering the hallway for months. I got to work. What was meant to be a simple decluttering evening turned into time travel.
Fashion school
First stop: a portfolio filled with old fabrics, sketches, very school-looking projects, and unimpressive report cards. Clear failures in sports classes, balanced elsewhere. CEGEP was a strange place where opposite subjects coexisted: sewing and volleyball, illustration and statistics. A place where I learned a great deal, finally having the chance to work with my hands.
What I miss most from that period as a student is the contact with materials, fabrics, and textures. I did not realize it at the time (I was a lazy explorer), but this was what could have inspired me the most.
Paper lace
It immediately felt perfect for a collage. Found alongside mood boards inspired by the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which reminded me of my current Pinterest boards. At that moment, my mind was already occupied by a pastel green pencil, slightly radioactive, picked up during a recent trip to Prague. The equation was finally solved. Radioactive pastel green + paper lace + a Yves Saint Laurent dress from 1961 = my next illustration.
An unexpected stop: the phone graveyard
A box full of obsolete objects. A brief wave of nostalgia for these retro ancestors, rather charming now that I look at them with some distance. No way to turn them on, their cables are long gone. My father suggested throwing them away. Absolutely not. Inaccessible memories, probably very cringe, so close yet so far. Something for another time.
Photographs
Between exploring these archives and our growing dependence on the digital world, a desire for analogue photography slowly settled in. Inspired as well by my grandmother’s photo albums, which I revisited during my time back in my hometown, I rediscovered a period when archives were handled with care. Chronology, handwritten captions, and above all, selection. Making room in memory for what is truly memorable, rather than an endless stream of repetitive images. Something ordinary from a different time that fascinates me today.
Some things never change
Looking back, I inevitably noticed how much I have changed. Very little remains of the chaos of 2008, except its essence. I never claimed to be immune to trends, but beneath it all, I uncovered a guiding thread. Trends come and go, but pastel colors, 1960s inspirations and soft textures remain.
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