Leeland Mitchell’s positive energy is contagious. The recent Project Runway Canada winner and I are chatting over Zoom after his first ELLE Canada fashion shoot—which also happened to take place during one of the worst snowstorms in Toronto history—and he is still in joyful disbelief and feeling genuine gratitude for everything that’s happening. “It was so much fun—the photo shoot itself and doing all of that, hanging out with [everyone], having these models… It was such a collaborative experience,” he tells me. “I really under- stood this editorial [process]—like, we’re all putting our little piece into this, and we’re creating this cool little thing together.”
On the show’s finale, which aired on Crave this past January, when host and judge Coco Rocha stood in front of the three finalists (Mitchell, Charles Lu and Curtis Matysek) and announced that Toronto-based Mitchell had won, he was in complete shock. “At the end there, it really could have gone to any of us,” says Mitchell. “So when she said my name, I was shook. It even took me a second [to realize]—they cut it very well on-camera. I was in complete disbelief. I was shaking. I even looked over at Curtis, being like, ‘What!?’ It was an incredible moment that I will literally never forget. I still go back and watch that video and think ‘Did that happen?’ And, like, ‘I am a fashion designer.’”
Over the course of the competition, Mitchell was always ahead of the pack when it came to sewing and the technical aspects of constructing clothing thanks to his past experience working in costume design, but he was often told by the judges and mentor Aurora James to pare things back, edit and make his work less theatrical. “I’m so used to working for drag queens and things like that, so calling myself a costume designer was almost like a crutch for me to be like, ‘I can make stuff that’s camp or over-the-top, and I can call it costume design,’” he says. “But then I saw this other aspect of myself be like: ‘No, we can edit this, and we can still have the costume in the camp, but what if we looked at it through a fashion lens? What if it wasn’t performancewear? What if it was more runway or more fashion—more editorial?’”
It was this kind of exploration and editing that won over the final judging panel, which included Fashion Television icon Jeanne Beker, Toronto-based designer Spencer Badu and Canadian-born designer Jason Wu. Beker especially had a love for Mitchell’s designs, which she said brought her back to what made her fall in love with fashion: the fun of it all. “The world is so messed up right now, so anytime we can experience joy, [we should] take it and run with it,” says Mitchell. “You know, [winning this] is a moment that will always make me happy and I will always remember. But then the day [after big moments like these], we’re often back in turmoil. So, yeah, I just want to always remember that we should continue to have joy in our lives, even when things feel dark or really tough.” There’s no doubt that his collection is pure joy. And we can’t wait to see what he does next.