Fashion Jack: A Young Designer in Vancouver

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lean lines and visual rigour are hallmarks of modern design, but when Josh and Marla Pekarsky commissioned a house by contemporary architecture firm Battersby Howat, they requested instead a room where mess and mayhem could rule.

“I wanted creativity to have free rein,” says Marla. “A space where the kids could draw, paint, collage, play with clay; somewhere where they didn’t have to worry about spilling or cleaning up in the middle of the project.” The concrete had barely been poured before eight-year-old son Jack was repurposing construction castoffs with a glue gun.

His fascination with modern architecture evolved into chair prototypes, which then gave way to a keen interest in sunglasses. After a stint at the Design Exchange summer camp in Toronto, an obsession with shoes dovetailed with clothing design and Jack’s F11 brand was born in this tiny purpose-built craft room. All of which comes as no surprise to his parents: this boy, whose favourite designer is Marc Jacobs, hails from a creative lineage-Jack’s great-grandfather, Henry Singer, opened his venerable luxury menswear stores decades ago in Edmonton and Calgary. They’re still going strong today.

 Launch Video of Jack