Three fashion designers walk into a shoe store.
It’s to celebrate one of them, who has an annual festival dedicated to his designer shoes.
John Fluevog, Anna Sui and Dame Zandra Rhodes were united in Vancouver last week for what is known as Flummunity Fest — a three-day gathering that hosts guest speakers and showcases new collections.
As part of the festival, Fluevog and Sui re-released their beloved butterfly appliqué denim boots from the 90s, part of Sui’s 2025 collection.
Between the three of them, they have more than 130 years of experience in the fashion industry.
The trio sat down for an interview with CBC’s On The Coast guest host Jodie Martinson ahead of the festival.
Vancouver’s own John Fluevog’s distinct shoes are being celebrated by the people who love them in the annual Flummunity Fest
Designers Anna Sui and Dame Zandra Rhodes join John Fluevog to talk about the community built around the fashion.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What unites you in the styles that you create?
JOHN FLUEVOG: The first thing that occurred to me when you said that was old age.
All of us have been through a lot of fashion decades. I started here in Vancouver in 1970. So things have changed, and things haven’t changed. But every decade, or I would say every six years, there’s a change, and we have to flow with it. And all of us as designers have done that. And for us to have endured all of the sometimes nonsense that goes on in the fashion industry all these years is a feat.
ANNA SUI: Like you think that you have control, but there’s bigger forces and like the economy is always shifting. We’ve kind of had to really scramble to resource, find materials, find workers, find people that really understand your product, find stores. It’s always shifting and we’re constantly figuring out a new way to do things. And now, with the internet and e-commerce, it’s really been a seismic shift.
Dame Rhodes, when I think about all of you, I think about colour. What is it about colour that is so at the centre of what you do and what you see in their work as well?
DAME ZANDRA RHODES: Uplifting. I mean, I felt uplifted in my Fluevog bright orange shoes as I bounced to his place this morning for us to talk about our visit here, which was fantastic.
What do you talk about when you three hang out?
FLUEVOG: Women are so much different than men. When they get together, they don’t know each other; they’ve just met, and within seconds, it will go to hair. Oh, I love your hair. What do you do with it? Oh, how long have you had it that way? How do you do what? It’s all about hair, and men would never do that.
I think that we have a lot of shared experiences in our lives with being in the fashion industry. As Anna pointed out, it’s always the same, yet it’s always shifting. There haven’t been a lot of people that started in a boutique business in Canada that are still existing.
So, if I have any claim to fame, it is the fact that I’m just still sitting here and still alive. And hopefully still relevant because I think when you’re doing your own thing, like we all three of us are, we’ve got our own originality that makes it enduring. You need to keep with your own energy and your own vibe. I think that’s what the three of us have in common, and that’s why we’ve endured.
But Anna, is it just about shoes or is it about a community?
SUI: It’s totally like they’ve found their people. They found their tribe. They have a chance to strut their stuff, and people get it and appreciate it, and they admire it and envy it. I think it’s really kind of like when you have the right look with the right people is really kind of the aim of why we all get dressed up, whatever the message is.
In some ways, Vancouver can be a little bit of a drab fashion city. Sometimes we are just wearing waterproof boots and oversized raincoats. What have you noticed about the city’s fashion?
FLUEVOG: I guess on occasion, I have to reflect, and I say I am proud of myself being from Vancouver. I was born here in the Vancouver General Hospital. Vancouver has not in the past been known as a place for fashion, but that’s been changing because the world is changing and there’s no reason why that has to be anymore.
Yes, we are an outdoor kind of place and that’s primarily the fashion go-to here because of our weather. But having said that, there’s always been a sort of a West Coast or a funk feeling that I’ve enjoyed and has kept me in business and I thank Vancouverites and Vancouver for keeping me in business all these years.
What have you been working on?
RHODES: Well, each season both Anna and I, apart from John’s whole collection, we’ve been producing new sets of shoes to wear and prance around in. But they go with all of my wardrobes. So it doesn’t mean that you always have to have new things. The thing about a Fluevog shoe is it doesn’t date. It’s sort of like having Dorothy’s shoes.
FLUEVOG: We’re always going back to the archives, looking at things, reinventing them, putting different twists on them. We do that because a shoe is only a foot long. The fashion business has a lot to do with timing. It’s always a bit of a game, and it’s always fun. I still love looking at the product that comes in the samples that arrive in my office. They still get me excited and get me going.
SUI: I’m so blessed that I’m still doing what I love, what my whole life ambition was.
RHODES: I think if you’re in fashion, you’re in it for your whole self. I’ve just brought out my book Iconic, and it’s about the fact that I live my work, right from when I first left school.
I think all of us are very distinctive. One is distinctive without thinking about it. It happens naturally. And then you only realize when other people say, ‘Do you mind people looking at you so much?’ And you think, ‘Well, I don’t really notice. I just get on with it.’
FLUEVOG: You just get a vibe. Each of us is unique. And I’ve just enjoyed finding out my own uniqueness. And just as Zandra said, just go with it and not worry about what other people are doing. And maybe that’s why I stayed in business all these years because I haven’t chased trends that much. I do it here and there, but not a lot.