The Indian Spice in Canada’s Fashion Scene
BY AVINASH GAVAI | IAN CANADA
DECEMBER 18, 2009

If Ottawa is, as some say, a stuffed-shirt town full of cynical bureaucrats, nerds, techies, soccer moms, and bland suburbanites, to what do can be attributed the recent spurt of fashion in Canada’s capital city?

Fashion trend spotters have unearthed a modest but palpable increase in Ottawa’s appetite for fashion. And one of the prime movers in the evolution of this city’s fashion scene comes from the unlikeliest of places: Viresh Pujara, a small man with a big personality, and even bigger dreams.

“I love fashion and have always wanted to run my own agency,” he said. “Ever since I was young, I always had an intuitive eye for spotting what was aesthetically pleasing.”

Pujara, an alumnus of Ottawa’s prestigious Carleton University, was brought up in a typically conservative Gujurati family, where expectations for him were limited to preconceived notions of what a young Indian male should do. Pujara’s parents nursed hopes that he would become a doctor, lawyer, or an engineer.

“Not a single soul had any faith in my ability to succeed in what I was doing, and I wanted to prove everyone wrong,” said Pujara.

Viresh worked in a variety of jobs after graduation, including a government internship and an extended stint as a nightclub manager.

“It‘s important to remember that every job no matter how tedious or cumbersome can be useful in making contacts and in generally understanding how people think,” he said. “In my business, one has to deal with different personalities all the time, so my period in the occupational wilderness was crucial and instructive.”

With over 35 hand-picked models in his agency, Pujara seems poised for success. Eyeing the streets to find fresh new faces since 2002, his agency “Cover Models” has become one of the foremost model scouting and placement agencies in Canada.

“I have really high standards,” he said. “I’m at every one of the models’ local test shoots. I verify my models’ measurements very frequently. When overseas, I call my models all the time -- I truly manage them.”

He has set up a home for this agency, furtively named Studio Four 30 – a reference to a partnership he has initiated with CoverModel’s three in-house photographers. Along with them, he also has in this studio, wardrobe stylists, and make up and hair dressers –a veritable professional fashion army.

Pujara is also dismayed by what he considers “elitist assumptions” about fashion in Ottawa.

“One great example is one of our local downtown malls,” he said. “They choose to hire models and photographers from Montreal for their campaigns. Though there are equally amazing models and some outstanding photographers here, they probably feel it’s prestigious to shoot the campaign in Montreal.

“What is holding us back is the faith from those in our own city.”

Pujara has grand plans to creatively move beyond the agency. He doesn’t want to reveal details, but explains that a major “move within the entertainment industry” is in the works.

With a mischievous twinkle in his eye, he merely says, “You will just have to wait and see.”