In the midst of Adweek, photographer Sarah Blais set out to uncover the day-to-day dudewear of creative duos in a few of Toronto’s finest advertising agencies. (Shoutout to Narrative PR of Bensimon Byrne, too; they planned Ad Ball and gave us this idea.)
First stop: Juniper Park, where she met with Mike and Laurent. The team has been working together for half a year, but both have been in the industry for a while.
Laurent Abesdris is a 30-year-old copywriter who grew up thinking he’d be a lawyer. After taking political science at school, he realized his love for writing and applied for a spot at Cossette Atlantic, where he began his career in advertising at 25. How, he can’t imagine himself doing anything else. Juniper Park preaches comfort in dress code — to maximize creativity. That being said, Laurent will still put a decent outfit together. He shops at Nomad, Uncle Otis, Oliver Spencer, Goodwill, and Kensington Market. Today, he wore Red Wings and a pair of long underwear he stole on from a friend at summer camp in ’98. Incidentally, that was also the summer he became obsessed with Phish. Now, it’s more about Bon Iver.
Laurent’s favorite spot (a 30-second TV ad) was for Boags Draught, a Tasmanian beer company. He says he likes anything with a bit of “nerdgasm” in it.
Art director Mike Lo, 28, was born on an island called Mauritius. The last concert he attended was Radiohead (he loves how experimental they are). Before Juniper Park, he was Leo Burnett. His uniform for work is “usually jeans, shoes, and a shirt,” but likes to shop in Kensington for things with good colours. If there is a client meeting, Mike will throw on a long sleeved button-up and some dressier shoes.
In high school, Mike saw a print ad with a fridge that had water leaking out the bottom of it, and beside it was a bottle of Heinz hot sauce. Although today, he wouldn’t consider it anything special, at the time it made him want to go into advertising. Two nights ago Mike cooked a tenderloin steak seasoned with salt, pepper, and thyme, and threw some fried mushrooms on top. Classic. No Heinz, though.
At Tribal DDB, Sarah walked in on Hot Dog Friday. Derek Blais, who happens to be her brother and Ian Mackenzie have been working together for three months now, with a big digital campaign in the works.
Derek Michael Blais, 27, has been with Tribal DDB for 6 months. He’s been art directing for 7 years, but has been identifying logos/typefaces/colour patterns since before he could read. The most influential campaign in Derek’s life was BMW’s “The Hire.”
At work, Derek likes to look as polished as his work does in front of the clients. He typically wears either a full suit or a deconstructed suit with clean Stan Smiths. His photographed outfit: a Ben Sherman Camden cut suit and a t-shirt from Carte Blanche. The last concert he went to was Jenners Field in London, UK, and the last meal he cooked was seared free-range organic duck. Apparently the duck was only fed caviar for generations, and the caviar was fed even more expensive caviar…
Ian David Mackenzie is the copywriter of the team, and his favourite campaign ever is “Adidas: Just do it.” At Tribal DDB the dress code is business casual, but typically Ian wears a jacket, jeans, collared shirt, and sensible shoes. In the photos he’s wearing a Harry Rosen jacket, Club Monaco shirt, AG chinos, and Cole Haan wingtip brogues. Ian likes Harry Rosen but thinks it’s insane to spend that kind of money on all your clothes, so he’ll mix it up when he can (he found a great jacket at Winners recently). These days, Ian’s been listening to Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, and Bon Iver. The last concert he went to was Betty and the Bobs at Hugh’s Room, and the last meal he cooked was “high in carbs.”
The last stop was BBDO at Bloor and Yonge, where Chris and Mike greeted Sarah with a Kraken rum & coke (more like YUM & COKE). This team is best known for their Touch the Rainbow campaign for Skittles (if you haven’t seen it: what??), and they can go through a 25-pound bag of the candies in two weeks. The two have been working together for six years and at BBDO for four. Chris says they’re like each others “daywives,” and Mike even packed Chris a lunch that day (which Chris didn’t eat because of the burger that he bought instead, ouch).
Chris Joakim, 31, is the team’s copywriter. He wears a plaid shirt 90% of the time with black pants and usually “some sort of shoes.” These were from Bodega in Boston; in Toronto he frequents Livestock, Adrift, and Holts. He has nearly 50 pairs and is working hard to attain his dream shoe closet. Today, Chris was listening to “Area Codes” by Ludacris, “Stork Patrol” by Lonely Island, and “November Rain.”
Mike Donaghey, 27, is an art director who’s been passionate about advertising since taping “Best Commercials of the Year” back in the ’80s. The majority of Mike’s wardrobe is American Apparel white v-necks, although lately he has been trying to get some colour in the mix. He shops at Levi’s, Ransom, Lavish & Squalor, and American Apparel. Shoes? Nah, he prefers to wear slippers at work. The last meal he cooked was conchiglioni pasta stuffed with mushrooms, spinach, cream pesto and cheese, and the last concert he went to was Ra Ra Riot opening with Dinosaur Bones.
Sarah Blais has been shooting Toronto Standard’s Uniform Project since September and thinks ad guys are the cutest since bike messengers. Follow us on Twitter @TorontoStandard & @sarahblais_.
