Going through my bins and boxes and I found this article. It was the 54 rock awards. Dated May 30, 1993 , thought you would enjoy- Kim Thompson
When Kim Thompson sent me yesterday I remembered this event like no tomorrow.
We did fashions shows everywhere.. It seems every week there was one.. Disco Viva and all the clubs in Hull and it seems every High School in Ottawa LOLOL. It was a great time to tell folks to be yourself and dress how you want to. In other memories most clubs in Hull had us design their waitress uniforms. One of my faves was the Caprice Disco Bar whose owners and family are still friends of mine which means so much to me.
And while you were over in Hull in the 70s, as suggested by this matchbook, you could have danced the night away at Le Caprice Disco, apparently located at 99 Rue Laval.
I imagine quite a few people from Ottawa took advantage of the opportunity .
54 Rock Show- The Civic Centre 1993
Three years before I closed my store I had the Canadian version of the Aids Quilt in my store window. I tried to raise money holding a fashion show for Bruce House which houses Aids patients. The poster, to some, had a very controversial picture of my friend Gabby on the front. Women’s gay groups did not care for the picture, because she was posing on her knees. Dave Grant, the photographer never even thought about it being a submissive position when he took the photo-because it was just an attention grabbing image.
After the controversy became public in the media my store window got smashed and I got death threats, and had to get a bodyguard. No money was ever raised for Bruce House because I canceled the show. I made that particular decision because I was afraid something might happen. I could not even fathom the thought of one of my gay friends and customers getting hurt because of me. But, to other people, the fact that I wanted to do something good for the gay community was wrong. When I did my next fashion show a month later for “54 Rock” some of “their” people read the riot act to me about being controversial, but yet they relished in the publicity. Instead of a fashion show we had dancers in our outfits. Again, I had to have a bodyguard. After I left the fashion show my bodyguard tried to “jump me” in the Congress Centre. One of my beloved friends and staff – one Deirdre Sims, had to hit him with her umbrella to get him off me. A story to tell the grandkids.
The Fashion “Rag and Boner” Shows Le Sacs Disco Bar Hull- poto- Denis Laviolette who worked his whip that night on the stage and did all the choreography.
A month after we opened in 1976 we did our very first fashion show. No one had done anything like that in a bar that I knew of, so I dumped “a pound of courage” in my purse and went to Les Sacs Disco Bar in Hull. It was the number one bar that year, and I went in there head held high, and attempted to sell them the show.
I don’t know if it was because I was dressed like Dame Edna, or they were in total shock, but they agreed. On Monday, September 13, 1976, I sat at a makeshift desk on their stage as the announcer of a fashion show that was billed as: “A unique and different kind of fashion show”, or “Une defile de mode de linge automne fantastique”. And ‘fantastique’ it was!
The stores in the show were:
Flash Cadilac
Rhapsody Rag Market (Morning Star)
Sarah Clothes
Yes, We Have No Bananas
Retro Hair-Sculpture
The Villager Shoe Stores
Make-up by Mary Quant
The bar owners decided to check out each store before the show, as most of these stores were considered avant-garde. The last thing Sacs wanted was to tarnish their reputation. As soon as they walked into Rhapsody Rag they were not impressed and told me to drop them from the show. Julie Griffiths, specialized in Indian imports (Morning Star) which just wasn’t in the comfort zone of people that wore three-piece suits. I really stomped my platformed-foot down about the subject and the show went off without a hitch.
Sacs held 200 people and 400 people packed themselves into that space that night. There were even people standing on beer cases against the wall, and that evening went down in local fashion history. After that, every monkey’s uncle wanted to borrow clothes, but no one had anything compared to my stable of models. My original models had “this walk” that defied gravity, and frankly I have never seen it anywhere else. They had this lean of 35% degrees when they walked down the runway and never cracked a smile.
They were so straight-faced that someone asked me once if they had a medical condition that made them constipated. Not in the least! I wanted them to look unfocused, aggressive and serious. I had a disagreement once with the producer’s of “You Can’t Do That on Television” when they insisted my models had to smile for the camera. I retorted with an excuse that classic models in the “old castle paintings” didn’t smile. They quickly retorted that those particular models had horrible dental hygiene back then.
It was a complimentary spot on their show, I gave in, and a couple of the models displayed their “iffy dental hygiene” with a smile. Those smiles, in all honesty, distracted from the clothes, and they looked self-conscious and awkward. When the film was reviewed the producers agreed and no one smiled again. Actually, I truthfully have to ask myself now if we were asked back again.
Fashionista Lingo- “Rag and Boner” means–”loses ones capacity over something really fashionable.
Okay, it’s best not to do the math in this case, but the musical film Flashdance was years ago. I think I just broke my hip, and excuse me, while I step outside and kill myself (while wearing a cut, ripped, off-the-shoulder sweatshirt that I used to wear as a dress back in the day).The 80s were a great time for movies and music. When the two merged, it was pure magic: Footloose, Flashdance, Dirty Dancing, Beverly Hills Cops, Romancing the Stone, etc. Fabulous artists like Phil Collins, Pointers Sisters, Billy Ocean, Irene Cara made the movies even more memorable with their theme songs.
I really didn’t care about the controversy over the uncredited dancer who did the difficult routines. You mean movies aren’t real? Critics panned the movie, but the target market loved it. We just cut the necks out of everything, and worshiped the scene where Beals takes her bra off under her off-the-shoulder sweatshirt.
This morning I woke up wondering, what are the former ‘Flash Dancers’ from my store were doing now. Then I sang “What A Feeling” in the shower. As I daydreamed about trying to do the splits- both ways – I imagined myself slipping on the soap, so that ended that fantasy.The two and half minute hotter than the core of a nuclear reactor dance sequence with Cynthia Rhodes as Tina Tech still haunts me to this day. Will I ever be able to run up a wall and do a back flip? Okay that is putting myself out there but a more embarrassing statement – leg warmers. Over jeans! I rest my case.
It took me about 3 hours to get Flashdance items into production. We had a basic Lycra pantie named P67 that the legs suddenly became barely there in the front and the back, and I cut them in 7 different colours. The off the shoulder sweat top suddenly found itself on the front racks “looking for a manhunt” style of customers. Admit it – you cut the necks wide on all your tee shirts after seeing this movie!Everyone wanted to look like Jennifer Beals and a Flashdance musical was suddenly being shown on the Barrymore’s stage. “What a feeling” was all over Ottawa!
Did this movie influence fashion for more than 5 minutes How long until Hollywood makes a reboot of this movie? Is Jennifer Lopez still dancing? Suddenly, I have a yearning for a ripped-neck sweatshirt and leg-warmers. Tell me the truth, you are dying to wear those 80’s styles again!
By Jacob Siskind Citizen staff writer –
What did we have to do with the show below? Provided most of their costumes…
Dance Manic is currently at Barrymore’s on Bank Street and if you enjoy watching vigorous movement set to loud music this is definitely for you. The ensemble of eight dancers is full of eagerness, and despite opening night jitters and the usual mishaps with the lights and props, succeeded in providing the packed house with entertainment most people seemed to enjoy. There were three widely spaced sets opening night, but the lateness of the hour prevented me from catching the last. The first two were surprisingly brief and the intermissions unconscionably long.
Missing the third set, however, meant missing a solo by Ron Proulx and a duo that would have featured him with Monica Jeffery. Since it was Proulx, an alumnus of Ottawa Dance Theatre, who seemed to set the house afire earlier in the evening, the loss was mine. It was in What a Feeling, the finale of the second set in which Jeffery, Proulx and Daniel Dagenais were the performers, that the evening suddenly took wing. The highlights of dramatic moment when Proulx plucked Jeffery out of the air as she leaped past him and an equally exciting routine in which he did several backflips. This was hardly what one might call dance, and it certainly wasn’t choreography, but it was the first time all evening that anything really exciting had happened on stage and the audience responded with vigorous applause and whistles.
The girls in this ensemble are all pleasant to look at with charming faces and lithe bodies, but for all their efforts they give the impression that they have all just come out of a convent and are trying desperately to look bad. J Dancers in Dance showed her long legs to good advantage in It’s Raining Men, but failed to generate any real excitement despite high kicks of quite exceptional dimension. Manic at Barrymore’s The company is young, eager and enthusiastic. What it needs is an imaginative choreographer able to use its ample talents to the hilt.
Reflections in the Old Embassy West Hotel 1979
At a 1979 fashion show at Reflections in the Old Embassy West Hotel, media such as Kelly’s Capital People were there covering our latest ‘Disco Space’ fashion show. She noted that the several hundred people were all dressed in stage creations. Stage creations? It was reported they loved partying with the ‘Disco Dollies’ and overhearing their jargon over the roar of the vibrating sound. Rumour was that they had purchased one tile floor from the movie Saturday Night Fever. Who has it now?
Forever friend Dennis Charlebois was quoted in the newspaper as saying,
“It’s all high energy.” said Dennis, who was off to Los Angeles to ‘make the party scene’!
Dennis still lives in California, what ended Disco?
Disco Viva had a fire in August of 1979, and the next year they brought in the UK band Teen Beat to an empty club. Was it the beginning of the end?
I finally got into Studio 54 after many attempts in 1979, but the buzz had begun to die. America’s favourite sport was to blame for initially getting the word out that Disco sucked. On July 12, 1979 a movement in Chicago called Disco Demolition began. Laid off DJ, Steve Dahl, along with an effort to sell seats at a White Sox/Detroit Tigers double-header, began the anti-disco movement.
If you showed up at the ballpark with 99 cents and a disco record you were admitted. Over 90,000 fans decided to take that deal, and following Dahl’s lead, they stormed the baseball field to blow up all the Disco records. Chaos ensued, and some said it had to be a Midwesterner revenge against dance music. After all, how many of them owned a three-piece suit, and could get entry into one of those fine Disco establishments?
Blondie was bringing in white rap, and music from bands like B-52’s, and Depeche Mode were becoming all the rage. However, the club scene in the early 80’s was still bigger than ever. Gay clubs were coming out of the underground like Les Sacs in Hull and bringing in the customers.
But there were people like Anita Bryant and friends, that were trying to destroy the gay lifestyle and attempting to associate it with Disco. Add that to the mix of those that hated the music and the world soon came to an end of what we all knew was Disco.
And so ended the Disco King and Queen’s reign of Ottawa-Hull. Leroy/Michael Chanikira had been ‘layin’ them flat’ with his flyin’ feet and gyrations for years at Disco Reflections.
Judges Max Keeping of CJOH, Elaine McCay, owner of Elaine’s Pub, and myself, had personally crowned him on originality, interpretation and crowd appeal. I was quoted as saying Ottawa’s Disco dancers were not as fanatic as the Americans who practiced all week. I told reporter Rose Simpson after a pre-contest spin around the dance floor that everyone did their own thing. And so, everyone else ended up doing their own thing after that, and so did Flash Cadilac, as we didn’t want to become a statistic of Disco.
My beloved dreads.. Another 54 rock fashion show– Civic Centre . My hair for this show1994
Things had simmered down for this show below and the videos are not great… but it was to the tune of this song. VIDEOS below..
More 54 Rock shows
1994– 54 Rock Fashion Show
Skateway 1979
Lost Ottawa
Linda Seccaspina shares three fabulous shots from a Flash Cadillac photoshoot at Ottawa’s Skateway Roller Disco in 1979.
Writes Linda:
“The other day Lost Ottawa posted memories of Skateway on Morrison Drive, which is now Lee Valley Tools.
We did a few fashion shows there and this is one from 1979. When I look at the clothing now, I realize we were lunar years away from everyone in fashion LOLOL!
My store Flash Cadillac on Rideau Street in Ottawa was the first business in Canada to start using lycra spandex for active wear and bathing suits. I remember trudging down to New York for it, and also that the first plant to begin making cotton lycra (in the 1980s) was in Granby, Quebec.
Memories of the past… Thanks Lost Ottawa for reminding me.”
To Dan Webb who got me to write these stories NINE years ago LOLOL.
Friday, Jan 16th, 2015.
“Hi, my name is Dan. I just saw your post on the Facebook Lost Ottawa group. You spoke to my Small Business Management Class at Algonquin College back in 1996. A speech we all never forgot. Just wanted to say Hello!!”
As I read the Facebook message again I was amazed people remembered me. After all, I had opened my business before the internet surge, and most of my customers were on the verge of forgetting everything, like myself. Two weeks previous I had actually found the speaking engagement itinerary from Algonquin College along with the complimentary pen they gave me. As my eldest son said,
“Keep the pen Mum, it could be a collectors item one day.”
I remembered the hour-long speech and cringed. Speaker number 5 was my position between the Second Cup Business Franchise and the students ‘nutrition break’. It was a tough slot to be in. I wanted to be different, so I remember walking in lip-synching to Aretha Franklin’s “Respect”. Knowing that Maureen Donnelly would not have done anything similar in her discussion previously about car dealerships; I figured I walked alone. The 50 odd business students sat before me with their mouths open after that entrance, and I immediately told them that if they wanted to hear how glorious owning a small business was that they should have invited Corel’s Michael Copeland. I patted a front row student on the shoulder and told him,
“Honey, don’t think you are going to get rich, as there ain’t no Love Boat dockin’ at the retail port anymore.”
lindaseccaspina 