A contemporary artist and conceptual designer, Jo Cope plays with the semiotics of dress. From her recent work at The Garden Museum in London, to the Venice Design Biennale to her out-of-the box fashion activism in support of Shelter, the UK homeless charity, Jo pushes boundaries and questions fashion's evolving role within art and society. Jo adapts traditional shoe making techniques to create handcrafted metaphorical and symbolic artworks which use the shoe as a vessel to explore notions of being human.  Warm and funny, Jo talks to me about all those conceptual shoes, about her boundless curiousity - and about her dyslexia. Jo is a dyslexic artist and believes that her neurodiversity is a key attribute to her practice.   A portrait of Jo recently became a billboard on the London Design Museum to celebrate neurodiversity during London Craft Week. Jo was also instrumental in the creation of the new "Fashion For Social Change Award" for Graduate Fashion Week with Shelter UK.

Julian Warner says his body is a canvas; his fashion style is eclectic, disruptive - and joyous. A delightful raconteur, Julian has tales of a lifetime of travel from Easter Island to Tibet. Julian directs us to good vintage shopping in international capitals – and explains how he came to own a thousand shirts. Join me in conversation about race, disruption, clothing as communication. Do come along and enjoy this man’s contagious joie de vivre. Julian has 11000 fans of his style and travel inspiration on Instagram @vita.allegra. Learn more about this podcast series @cartondinvitation

Yossi Fisher: from the front row at fashion shows in Milan to rolling up his sleeves to help build fashion brands. Yossi is a guru, advising fashion brands about how to play the long game, stay authentic and show empathy towards the customer base. Yossi has insights on how to become a fashion influencer, what faux pas to avoid and what practices to embrace. He has unothodox opinions about fashion schools and advice for aspiring fashion designers. Very usefully, Yossi also offers advice on how optimize Instagram, Tiktok, Linked In, Facebook, apps and newsletters to promote your brand. This epsiode is basically a free brand consultation - enjoy! To learn more: yossifisher.com Instagram: @yossi_fisher To learn more about this overall project visit @cartondinvitation on Instagram

Former model, master tailor, fashion designer, Alexis Mersmann in conversation about their beautiful new collection created using denim found on the streets of Berlin (and other places too)!  Alexis shares thoughts on many issues: gender fluidity, sustainability, sizing in fashion, day to day life in Berlin - and growing up on a dairy farm in the German countryside. Besides fashion collections, Alexis creates costumes for theatre, film, drag kings and drag queens.   To encounter Alexis in person and see their inventive designs, go to the podcast video trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81Iv6q-wdng Find @alexismermaid on Instagram  Follow @cartondinvitation on Instagram to learn more about this podcast series and Nancy Devitt Tremblay's associated documentary film project. This episode explores Alexis' ideas about what fashion should say, how a well cut garment can make a person feel and all the different places inspiration can be found. It also offers a revealing glimpse into the world of fashion modelling.

Carton d’invitation is a podcast that celebrates creative people - expressing themselves through fashion, music and design. Self-reflective moments with creators motivated by the search for beauty - and community. These are people whose creative explorations help us all feel seen. Along the way, you will learn how to design a garment, compose a pop song, create a brand, become an influencer or make a movie. Most especially, you will hear how my guests became comfortable being just who they are. Hear perspectives from Berlin, London, Toronto, Milan and Paris. I’m Nancy Devitt Tremblay and I’ve been a TV interviewer for the CBC and for the iconic Fashion Television; I covered fashion in Paris during the Golden Age in the 1990s and I’m currently working on a documentary about that experience. I’m meeting all kinds of creative people now on my journey so I’m creating portraits of these interesting folks in this podcast series. I do hope you come along on this adventure with me as I travel around the world meeting people who just can’t help but live their lives expressively - maybe they are already famous, maybe they are on their way or maybe they have just figured out the secret to enjoying a life of self expression and creativity for its own sake. During its first season, this podcast was known as Teaching the Teacher.  And those conversations are still available here too - featuring accomplished under-30's, talking about how they figured out who they wanted to be: a chef, a best-selling author, an immunologist, an astrophysicist, a diplomat, a doctor, a podcast star, a hedge fund trader...and many more. Music: Leon The Singer Follow @cartondinvitation on Instagram

Ever wonder about time travel, ever go off in search of the first light of the universe (hint you can actually find it), well then you will enjoy listening to University of Toronto, Science Communicator Spencer Ki regale you with tales of the heavens! Spencer also talks to us about how his curiousity took him through studies in AI, statistics, physics, mathematics and Shakespeare during an epic undergrad degree of his own design. Here's introducing polymath and my former student, Spencer Ki.

Japanese Alternative Fashion. Taking up Space. Helping Young Entrepreneurs across Canada. This episode is all about repurposing a teaching degree to create new career directions. "Life happens", says Melissa Backhouse as she takes us on a journey from teachers' college to working with Futurpreneurs Canada, helping hundreds of new businesses get off the ground. But we also learn about her passion for Japanese Lolita fashion, designing clothes that connect her with a whole community of people with similar interests. And of course wouldn't we discover Melissa is launching a small business of her own: making and selling jewelry!

After Josh's graduation from high school, he studied in the Bachelor of Health Sciences (BHSc) Program at McMaster University specializing in Child Health. While at McMaster, he took an introductory course in immunology that would change the trajectory of his life. To him, the cells of the immune system were small superheroes that protect the body from villainous infections. He did his undergraduate thesis with Dr. Manel Jordana studying the pathogenesis of food allergies, a foundational experience that inspired him to enroll in a Master's degree in Medical Sciences with Dr. Jordana in 2015. A year later, he transferred into the PhD program, where he still is today. Early in his graduate degree, Josh engaged extensively in education as a teaching assistant in the Child Health Specialization and in immunology courses. Inspired by his experiences in alternative education in the BHSc program, he designed a summer immunology course which the Bachelor of Health Sciences program allowed him to teach as an instructor. From there, he has expanded his role as an instructor- teaching multiple immunology and child health courses a year and providing guest lectures in multiple other courses across multiple universities. Since defending his PhD in May, Josh continues to engage in both research and education at McMaster.

Eternity Martis' debut memoir, "They Said This Would Be Fun", was a “Best Book of the Year” pick by Globe and Mail, Apple, Audible and Chapters/Indigo. A conversation with Eternity, fellow alumna, Serena Habib and me, her high school teacher.  Campus racism, intimate partner violence and a personal journey to understand identity.  CBC called the book one of “20 moving Canadian memoirs to read right now” and PopSugar named it one of “5 Books About Race on College Campuses Every Student Should Read.” In 2020, Eternity was named one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women by Women’s Executive Network.

Ever wonder how decisions get made to build superhighways or new transit lines? The big transportation decisions take a lot of advance planning, a lot of money - and you might think a crystal ball to predict. But no - it’s not magic! It’s a lot of math and hard work. My former student Balthazar Crane is busy doing infrastructure planning for 2041. Before that he studied at the University of Toronto in Engineering Science - that's reputedly the most difficult university program in North America.