Art meets fashion, Canadian-style

Art and fashion have always seemed like strange kin -- both being obsessive hobbies of the rich and/or famous, for one, though art has ever been the poor cousin -- so it's a moderate no-brainer that one of Canada's top young designers might cross-fertilize his own aesthetic with that of a rising young Canadian artist. Enter Jeremy Laing, whose show in New York last weekend featured diaphynous shifts and naughty see-through dresses printed with the rough geometries of Niall McLelland.

A little over a year ago, McLelland became that rarest of Canadian art phenomena, the overnight sensation, when his sharp, cleverly austere, process-based works touched a nerve in the market. His photocopy works -- large sheafs of paper rendered flat blackin the copier, then folded and carried in his pocket for a few weeks to create an lived-in pattern of creasing -- flew off the walls at the Clint Roenisch Gallery. Then, last fall, frantic bidding for a piece at a silent auction nearly devolved into a fist-fight.

And now? Laing's  a budding fashion-world bona-fide, adored by an increasing number of a moneyed, exclusive set. If they hadn't heard of Niall McLelland before, they have now. Which means getting your hands on one of his pieces just got that much harder. Curse you, Laing! And congrats.