Charlize Therrien
- Milan Tanedjikov
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
A design profile tracing Charlize Therrien’s emotional sensibility, quiet armor-making, and cinematic world-building within the LIGNES DE FUITE Mentoring Program.
Charlize Therrien grew up between Montreal and the Laurentides, in landscapes that felt familiar yet elusive, never quite allowing her to claim a single place as home. Moving often made her more attuned to atmosphere than geography, and being an only child taught her to observe quietly. Creativity entered her life early through drawing, painting and sculpting with her father, while her mother filled the house with books, culture, cooking and an understated curiosity that shaped her imagination.
Quebec folklore offered its small mythical frights, and at five years old, Lady Gaga appeared as her first concert—an encounter too early to decode yet powerful enough to leave a lasting impression of presence and transformation. Much of her childhood unfolded through invented worlds, improvised costumes, and endless Monster High reinventions made from scraps of fabric and tape. “I was always building little universes for myself,” she told me, as if remembering a private landscape that still sits close beneath the surface.
Fashion became a language during the pandemic, when stillness pushed her inward. She bought tools, began making bags with naïve but honest construction, and discovered that her artistic instincts converged naturally into clothing. An internship with Nah Imma Saint revealed a vibrant Montreal fashion community, leading her to Atelier Artifact where her early experimentations found a home. “It felt like the first time the outside world saw something I made,” she said, remembering the moment with quiet surprise. Her work began reflecting a tension she carries: a person who has spent most of her life taking up little space yet feels an insistence to be seen.
Her silhouettes behave like quiet armors—shapes that amplify, distort or protect without shouting. She is drawn to atmospheres shaped by Björk, Ecco2K, early Gaga, and the tender unease of Junji Ito’s characters. Her aesthetic language is rooted in contrasts: broad shoulders, narrow waists, rounded or exaggerated volumes that shift suddenly into cinched silhouettes. She gravitates toward natural fibers, leather and fur, her palette anchored in blacks, greys, whites and browns. “I want the pieces to feel like they’re breathing—soft, but a little unsettling,” she explained.
Education offered structure. At Marie-Victorin she learned the technical rigor behind clothing—the precision, the discipline, the intention required to translate emotion into form. She thrives between introspection and collaboration, between experimentation and the clarity of a clean workspace. She respects structure but recognizes when intuition must lead. “I can follow rules,” she laughed, “but sometimes breaking them feels more honest.”
Her process begins anywhere: a feeling, an image, a fragment she cannot shake. Research becomes a way of grounding instinct—films, books, objects, screenshots, old magazines. Sketching and textile experimentation help her translate atmosphere into form. She embraces failure as part of the ritual. Leather, fur and fabric manipulation allow her to sculpt emotion physically. “I love when something doesn’t work the first time,” she said, “because then I know there’s something there worth pushing.”
Her current project began with a small animal bone—a fragile fragment that opened a world of remains, traces and quiet presences. Bones, feathers, decaying structures, materials shifting between soft and rigid. She is exploring the tension between fragility and endurance, between disappearance and visibility. The pieces take up space through presence rather than noise. Textures shift, silhouettes expand and collapse, materials carry the memory of what they once were. “I kept thinking about what stays behind,” she said, “and how even small remnants can feel powerful.”
Charlize is still learning how to simplify. Her indecision comes not from doubt but from abundance—too many paths she wants to explore at once. She is learning to let ideas evolve, to loosen her grip on early versions, and to trust that clarity emerges through making. She hopes viewers feel whatever comes naturally: strangeness, nostalgia, unease, tenderness. What makes her practice distinct is how completely she inhabits her work. “I design from the place in me that still feels small,” she said, “and I try to build shapes big enough to hold that.”
Credits:
Images Charlize Therrien Words Milan Tanedjikov
Charlize is currently part of the LIGNES DE FUITE Mentoring Program, where she continues to refine the emotional, atmospheric language of her practice within our studio community. Her work will be shown publicly for the first time on December 19th during the Design Research Exhibition at Crossfade, a multidisciplinary evening co-organized with Gabriela Hébert and Narrativ Music. This presentation marks a quiet but resonant step in her path—an arrival within Montreal’s emerging designer landscape shaped by introspection, tension, and the subtle force of finally taking up space on her own terms.
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