Fashion designer Evalina Schmidtke chose the craft of couture to be her specialty. Spanning the genres of fashion
from technical outerwear design to custom tailoring and dressmaking. Her career spanning 27 years has established a broad foundation for expressing her craft in the world of residential styling.
With childhood roots in the Okanagan, Evalina Schmidtke grew up on an orchard and established a strong work ethic at a young age with chores tending to the orchard and gardens. One of her first jobs was as a wine tour hostess for Mission Hills Vineyard.
“I loved working at the winery and being amongst the process of wine making. I was able to observe the meticulous attention to process, and how timing and a favorable growing condition were essential elements to perfecting results. There were no shortcuts. I loved the earthy, raw, and brute processes that resulted in such refinement. It is the same ethic in each of the disciplines of fashion and home interiors.”
With sights on a career in fashion, Evalina moved to Calgary to work at her aunt’s factory – SUN ICE, where she spent 10 years honing her skills in active sportswear design. Sylvia Rempel, her mothers’ sister, was a pioneer of skiwear in Alberta and became a master mentor to Evalina with developing her trade of fashion design working through the processes of manufacturing. Her passion however was aimed for high fashion with her experiences on fashion runways – a part time job that introduced her to the world evening wear, luxurious fabrics and galas. Just one year after moving to Calgary, she entered and won the title of Miss Calgary 1986, and was awarded with the talent scholarship with her fashion collection. Her sights were firmly set for designing evening wear, but she realized that she needed to learn the trade of manufacturing, an essential understanding for all fashion designers. After a decade working at Sun Ice factory, her dreams of couture fashion honed on Paris. After studying the custom fitting process of bespoke pattern drafting and draping techniques in 1994, she applied to enroll in a seminar course on Haute Couture at the Paris Fashion Institute.
“One must work consistently towards your goals to be successful in achieving them with your aim on the target.”
It was a dream come true to be accepted as one of 18 students for the semester to learn from the best of the best in Haute Couture. That autumn in 1994, while her class was attending a surprise grand Finale tour at the highly esteemed and established Maison Lesage Embroidery, Evalina encountered a chance meeting with the master embroiderer himself, Monsieur Francois Lesage. Prior to attending the Fashion Institute, Evalina found a book in the Calgary Library, gaining her attention, The Master Touch of Lesage. She read the family story of Lesage Embroidery in her desire to know everything she could about the world she was to encounter in Paris. The story of the Lesage family was filled with life journeys that were rooted in history both in Paris and in Hollywood.
“His desk was an artistic jumble of fabrics, embroidery swatches and invitations to the upcoming fall couture collections in order of stacks – “must attend”, “give away”, and “undecided”. Antique home furnishing textiles drape a chair with embroidery dating from 1858 from the House of Michonet, the foundation of the Lesage family legacy. Framed Fashion photographs displayed on his wall with famous models wearing couture gowns embellished with Lesage hand embroidery. Each one with a personally written note of gratitude across the photo from the designer himself.
Christian Lacroix, Yves Saint Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld, Valentino! A Vintage Spanish matador jacket hangs with elaborate scrolls of gold-plated metallic embroidery swirling in arabesque rhythm amongst the sounds of cars and vespas entering through an open window”.
It was impossible for Evalina to know that in a few months’ time she would be nervously sitting in the office of the master himself. Monsieur Lesage enters the room sitting opposite to Evalina, crosses his legs and takes a long inhale on his cigarette that he held in his left hand. Leaning his head back, on the exhale he proclaims “Ah, Italian Knit” as he comments on the camel colored, cashmere, cable knit jumpsuit Evalina recently purchased in a fashion boutique located at Place des Victoires. He smiles and listens, cigarette in hand, speaks with heavily accented, perfect English, in a manner more statement than question. “So, I hear you have ideas for my school.” After only getting a few words out of my own, he interrupts me and says he’s hungry – “Lets speak over lunch!”
“I Listed to him with awe as he spoke of his personal experiences working with couturiers at Hollywood film studios and his encounters with Hollywood actresses and famous fashion designers.”
Evalina is transported into a world of fantasy with kaleidoscope of stars and fantastical stories, recounting to her in person what Evalina had read in the book selected off a Calgary Library shelf only months prior. This event left an indelible mark on the pathway of her career.
Evalina was hoping for a life changing experience while attending the Paris Fashion Institute and never in her wildest imaginations could she have imagined this stage of learning she was about to enter, shaping her future at the Ecole Lesage.
She knew that she needed to learn the skill of hand embroidery in order to achieve her goals in establishing her own evening wear collection. Immediately she enrolled in the next available courses of embroidery and remained in Paris to complete her classes at the Ecole Lesage Paris. Each day was spent in reverent silence in the serene atelier learning the needle and thread hand skills from a head embroider. The world of couture unravelling with each stitch she took, revealing the foundations of the couture craft.
After returning from Paris with a clear goal on how to establish her own collection, she maintained a freelance business of technical sportswear design, travelling extensively to Europe and the US in order to fund her new collection. Her expertise of understanding factory processes set her in the forefront in gaining design contracts with companies like Marmot, Elho, Serac, and Santa Cruz Snowboards.
Here enters her encounter with Robert Sweep which catapults her off her feet. Their worlds collide and it takes only one month for them to know their pathway was destined. Robert and Evalina get married in the fall of 1995 in the heart of the Canadian Rockies, and together joined creative forces opening Robert Sweep Home Furnishings, and Evalina Couture, a furniture and fashion joint venture that which was to become an iconic, modern furniture retail and design destination in the beltline art gallery district of Calgary.
Their goals are now in parallel force, and they set their targets on establishing Evalina’s Signature Bridal Collection in New York. After years of presenting her evening wear collections to the Calgary elite in attendance of charitable events, and hours of sewing samples into the morning light, Evalina established a clientele with commissions for her elegant custom couture evening wear. The result was a natural progression into a niche business of her exquisite Signature Bridal Wear Collection launched in 2001. Her highly esteemed gowns featuring delicate hand embroideries of her own design and hand draped French lace that she personally applied. Her poetic designs caught the attention of the Bridal Department Manager of Bergdorf goodman after Robert established the connection and together, they presented her gowns in a trunk show style appointment.
“It was mid-August in New York, hot and humid. We arrived from the airport with bridal gowns in three huge suitcases. After hours of steaming gowns in a 4 x 4 fitting room, without having a hired model, I took on the task to model and present the gowns trunk-show style to 7th floor shoppers at Bergdorf. After a great response to the gown designs, the manager gave us an invitation to meet with the bridal buyer in the upcoming New York Bridal show in October 2001.
“There were no guarantees, but it is an open door” exclaimed the Bridal Salon manager. However, to us it was a monumental entrance into a mountain valley. It took a whirlwind of planning over the next two weeks to get a show-suite to establish a presence at the show. Appointments were booked with all the leading magazines in attendance. We were on our way to New York with our collection. We had to pinch ourselves. -Then arrived Sept 11, 2001. Almost all our appointments cancelled due to the fear of travel after the tragic event. Despite the cancellations, we decided to keep our plan of presenting our collection at the show. We had only two remaining appointments with buyers and the rest were magazines that resided in New York. There at the show we landed a vendor partnership with Bergdorf Goodman that opened the door to an international clientele for custom couture bridal gowns. Additionally, every magazine visited our collection and expressed great gratitude to us to showcase in New York despite the fear that was in the air after 911”.
This achievement at the show began a successful relationship with Bergdorf Goodman, creating and delivering gowns to a prestigious New York Department store.
Back in Calgary, Evalina’s gowns graced the showroom as art in a museum, alongside B&B Italia furniture in minimalistic vignettes that featured Robert’s keen sense of proportion and eye for detail. His characteristic style of “Bijoux Chic” being exemplified with a bold frame on mirror and focal lighting. A mannequin stands to the side with fabric draped in the manner of, Madeleine Vionnet. Evalina’s exquisite signature bridal salon Evalina Couture, situated beside their furnishings showroom, became a pilgrimage for brides of Calgary to experience the beauty of the craft of couture and be inspired for a home with exquisite styling. Robert and Evalina’s creative expressions influencing parent and new couple as they visited their inspiring showrooms. Always in the service of the client, their craft becomes a bespoke experience.
Together they planned their store buys as they gained inspiration in Paris, New York and LA, with pilgrimages to leading hotels, restaurants and fashion boutiques. With Roberts’ client base now expanding borders, he broadens his design repertoire to cater to clients’ luxury vacation homes. Exemplified in a casual sense of elegance as experienced in resorts like The Montage, Hotel Belaire and San Isidro Ranch in Montecito become his inspiration. His use of strategic lighting to create ambient zones of retreat and relaxation become essential elements of his style. Outdoor water features become a backdrop to a Zen escape. Each project unique to a clients taste and wish-list.
Robert’s wealth of experience and his submersive foundation of a career spanning 45 years in the retail furniture business representing European luxury brands like B&B Italia, Moooi, and lighting Icons as Ingo Mauer and Foscarini, along with industry know-how and product delivery logistics is the expansive value that clients benefit when working with Robert Sweep.
Evalina’s complimentary foundation in the field of technical outerwear design and custom couture, brings an essential element of expertise and Lux to each project with delivery of a vision of creativity through the painstaking processes of craft. Using highly skilled technicians and workrooms, each stage of the design project whether it is custom upholstery, drapery, cushions and bedding now become the couture canvas for her to showcase her art of textile layering, even a chair slipcover requiring as much work and detail as a bridal gown.
Together they inspire each-other and take on each design project as a joint challenge with the central aim of creating relaxed, luxury living spaces personized for each client and their budget.