I love listening. It is one of the only spaces where you can be still and moved at the same time. — Nayyirah Waheed — Wednesday October 30th — —

“What art does — maybe what it does most completely — is tell us, make us feel that what we think we know, we don’t. There are whole worlds around us that we’ve never glimpsed.” Greil Marcus — Wednesday October 30th — —

The idea is to die young as late as possible. — Ashley Montagu — Wednesday October 30th — —

Harry Rosen by Gary Taxali

In November Harry Rosen will introduce a playful new collection of five special edition pocket squares designed by Canadian artist Gary Taxali. The 100% silk pocket squares, created exclusively for Canada’s premiere menswear retailer, celebrate the culturally-rich heritage of Canada and the featured cities: Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver. Each of Taxali’s unique designs plays off of the character, culture and landmarks of the particular city. The results are a set of colourful, comical, and highly wearable, collector’s item.

Gary Taxali is an award-winning illustrator and fine artist. His work consists of retro stylized characters, iconography and symbols reminiscent of 1930s with a low brow/high brow appeal. “I was inspired by how diverse our Canadian cities are, and I tried to capture the different moods and stories of Canadian life in a playful way,” says the artist when speaking on his designs for Harry Rosen. Each piece of artwork is reproduced on high-quality Italian silk, with hand rolled and stitched edges creating a fluid canvas. In the words of Taxali: “[it] shows that fashion is art and art can be fashion.”

Aside from his gallery shows and illustration work, Taxali also devotes a portion of his time teaching and lecturing at various arts organizations and schools such as OCAD University (Toronto, Canada), The Art Director’s Club of Houston (Houston, USA), Dankmarks Designskole (Copenhagen, Denmark) and Istituto Europeo Di Design (Rome, Italy). Other interesting clients of the artist include: Time, Rolling Stone, Newsweek, GQ and The New York Times, proving the artist to be a very active and versatile human being.

The collection will be launched with a special in-store signing by Gary Taxali at Harry Rosen’s flagship store in Toronto, 82 Bloor Street West on Saturday the 2nd of November.