Sophie Liptay-Abbott — JEJUNE
- Milan Tanedjikov
- Dec 18, 2025
- 4 min read
A design process interview with Montréal-based designer Sophie Liptay-Abbott, founder of Jejune, exploring sentimentality, hand-me-down culture, softness as strength, and the translation of folk music into garment language
There is a quiet intimacy to Sophie Liptay-Abbott’s work. It does not announce itself immediately, but settles in through texture, repetition, and care. Her label, Jejune, operates in a space where garments feel lived-in rather than styled, held rather than displayed. The work avoids spectacle and instead builds atmosphere through restraint, softness, and memory. At first glance, the silhouettes appear delicate. Slip dresses, lace, satin, subtle drape. But this softness is deliberate and structured. It carries weight beneath it, shaped by systems of repetition and ritual that borrow as much from music as from clothing.
Sophie grew up in suburban Ontario in a household shaped by classical and folk music, an environment that left a lasting imprint on how she approaches making. Classical music introduced discipline, endurance, and a deep sense of perfectionism. Folk music introduced oral tradition, things passed down imperfectly, altered slightly with each repetition but richer for it. That duality now sits at the core of Jejune. “If I were a genre of music,” she says, “I would definitely be folk music, probably indie folk for its independent and contemporary layer.” This logic extends directly into her garments, which often reference hand-me-downs, vintage clothing, and pieces that carry history. Sophie is interested in what clothing remembers, the way wear marks fabric and sentiment attaches to objects. Her goal is not novelty, but continuity. “My main focus in fashion is to reintroduce the sentimentality and uniqueness felt in a vintage or hand-me-down piece of clothing,” she explains, “and to inspire intentionality and mindfulness in clothing consumption.”
The musical reference is not metaphorical. Sophie actively explores how musical texture translates into textile language. Harmony becomes layering. Rhythm becomes repetition. Vulnerability becomes material choice. “I’m interested in how the textures of folk music, like acoustic guitar and three-part harmony, translate into textile art,” she says. Her aesthetic voice is organic, earthy, and sensitive, yet grounded. The garments are gentle but intentional, projecting an inner strength that comes not from rigidity but from consistency, from returning to the same ideas and allowing them to deepen over time.
Her process begins with observation rather than invention. Sophie is drawn to clothing that already exists, textures she finds innovative, and references encountered through research or daily life. Looking backward is not an act of nostalgia, but a way of situating herself within a longer timeline. “I’m interested in what has been done before me, how I fit into this timeline,” she says, “and how I can give my garments a sense of story and history.” Technically, she feels most fluent in digital tools such as Photoshop and Illustrator, though she is increasingly aware of the risk of using them as a crutch. Experimentation is something she is actively learning to embrace. Ideas often arrive as brief flashes rather than fully formed concepts, and she allows them to mature internally before forcing them into form. “An idea feels truly like my own when I spend hours thinking it over,” she explains, “letting it run its course in my mind and living it in my real life.”
This slowness is intentional. Rather than chasing immediacy, Sophie allows work to form through accumulation. Thought, memory, texture, routine. Her recent project, Replika, embodies this approach fully. Inspired by Café Replika in the Plateau, where she has worked for over three years, the collection draws from coffee culture, routine, and the intimacy of repeated encounters. The café becomes a contained world shaped by rituals, familiar faces, and quiet observation. “Within the walls of this café, I went through an immense evolution as a person,” she says. “From a broke music school dropout to an aspiring fashion designer.” She connects this personal experience to the broader rituals of coffee culture, the way people return daily, how relationships form slowly without intention. “I’ve connected with people there so far beyond just their coffee order,” she notes. “That feels very special, considering I wouldn’t have met them in any other context.”
The garments reflect this sensibility. They feel habitual, comfortable, personal. Designed not for a singular moment, but for everyday return. Replika is less about nostalgia than about presence and about how spaces and routines quietly shape identity over time. Materially, the work continues Sophie’s exploration of softness as a response to instability. Lingerie references remain visible, not as seduction, but as vulnerability made wearable. These choices are conceptual rather than decorative. “These roots in lingerie and soft, feminine, and vulnerable clothing came from a really difficult time,” she explains. “They’ve followed my work ever since.”
Through this project, Sophie reached a new depth in her practice. Jejune is not built around character or persona. Instead, it aims to express a distilled version of her own voice. Where songwriting allows her to imagine different characters, fashion becomes a space of alignment. “In songwriting, I imagine different characters,” she says. “But in fashion, I try to hone the purest version of myself.” Her storytelling remains close to the body and to lived experience. Rather than constructing fictional worlds, Sophie works through memory, sensation, and familiarity. Each garment is intended to be kept, worn, repaired, passed down.
Looking forward, she is focused on refining how vulnerability operates in her work, how to make it raw without becoming fragile. She is also actively unlearning the perfectionism inherited from her classical music upbringing. “I’ve begun to unpack this need for perfection and control,” she says. “I’m learning to play more.” That tension remains present in Jejune, between control and release, discipline and softness. The work does not ask for attention. It asks for care.
Credits:
Images Sophie Liptay-Abbott Words Milan Tanedjikov
Sophie Liptay-Abbott is currently part of the LIGNES DE FUITE Mentoring Program, where she continues to refine Jejune’s material language and conceptual clarity within the studio ecosystem.
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