Vancouver Designer Allison Dunne Weaves Art, Philosophy and Humour Into Dunne Cliff Knitwear

When designer Allison Dunne’s knitwear collection first made an appearance in the Vancouver fashion scene in 2023, the remarkable merger of tradition and pertinent thematics opened a door that onlooking aesthetes hadn’t known was there: contemplative knitwear.

Her brand Dunne Cliff has since sent philosophical essays, art references, math equations and tongue-in-cheek political commentary down Canadian runways, with images and coded messages interlaced right into the materials. This goes beyond dark academia—it’s the whole library.

READ MORE: 5 Stylish Vancouverites Share Their Fashion Secrets

What began as a collection of one-of-one knitwear pieces made over 50 painstaking hours from specially sourced Shetland wool has evolved into a charismatic, eminently wearable collection. The Vancouver-based designer adorns her pieces with endearing names and chess piece charms—the Darling denim midi skirt, for instance, has a miniscule knight figurine secreted away in the pocket and a garden-green weft on the inside of the design. Truly, it’s all in the details. Expect to find Harris tweed, cotton and Canadian wool among the latest Dunne Cliff curated collection.

READ MORE: 22 Home Tours That Go Inside the Personal Spaces of Vancouver’s Most Interesting People

Informed by Dunne’s academic background in art and the humanities, the project has down-to-earth origins, taking its name from the family cabin her grandfather built on Shuswap Lake: “They’d enlist my brother and me to dig potatoes, but then it would turn into this other kind of task with all sorts of fantasy elements, imagining games and stories and characters digging up the potatoes. That’s what the brand is to me now; I want people to feel that sense of the traditional, but then there’s playing, and there’s humour, and there’s a dream realm.”

Dunne’s perceptive creativity was further fostered by a broad family tree, which just happens to include a strong lineage of knitters, an industrial illustrator and even a computer scientist. Hints of Python, a computer programming language, have appeared before in the patterns of her knitwear. Suddenly everything makes sense: Dunne is an avid learner with a good sense of humour who simply transmutes the world around her into wearable art. “Maybe I’m just entertaining myself,” laughs the designer.

EDITORS’ PICK

Pieces like the slouchy  Comme des Oursons blazer ($228) are available at Front and Company on Main Street.