Fall Puces POP kicked off in the first week of September with our pop-up shopping event, Vintage POP, which found a temporary home at OFF Interarts for 4 days of exclusive vintage shopping from 12 of Montreal's best online shops and private vintage collectors.

Later in the month, we celebrated the first night of POP's 10th anniversary edition in style with our fashion design competition Fashion POP, showcasing the original work of emerging local designers Marie-Eve Dion, Maude Nibelungen, Genevieve Savard, Isabelle Campeau, Jon Schmidt, and Karen Vaquilar. The judges were won over by Isabelle Campeau's collection of airy, geometric greys and handmade, folded leather shoes, and she took home the $1,000 cash prize care of Le Chateau, a $500 gift certificate to Le Chateau, and her work will be featured in a 4-page editorial spread in an upcoming issue of WORN Fashion Journal. 

POP weekend was all about fairs, with our flagship event, the Puces POP DIY & Craft Fair returning to St-Michel Church, and the Puces POP Record Fair taking over the basement level of the Ukrainian Federation. The Craft Fair saw 70+ artisans and artists presenting their newest work for happy shoppers who picked up original screenprinted posters, handmade stationary, photographic prints, hand-sewn dolls, indie magazines, knitted woolwear, eco-friendly body products, one-of-a-kind ceramics, vintage-inspired jewellery, fermented and pickled foods, embroidery, cake on a stick, pierogies, and tons more!

Meanwhile, the Record Fair was jammed full of vinyl fiends sorting through crates of cheap and rare records from private collectors, limited run cassettes and vinyl from local and international labels, and all kinds of merch from Montreal record shops and show promoters—plus a guitar repair booth for on-site tune-ups! For the first time, CKUT 90.3 FM hosted vinyl show & tell sessions in the afternoons, and on the Sunday, local electroacoustic circuit-bending wiz, Michael Baker taught a free workshop on how to make a contact microphone using simple household materials.

We hope you took advantage of some of our free events and discovered new artists along the way. We have lots more exciting events on the way, so stay tuned! Up next in mid-November is LIL BIZ, our small business seminar for self-employed artists, and then the Holiday Craft Fair in December. If you'd like to join our mailing list to find out about upcoming Puces POP events and submission deadlines, send us a message at puces [at] popmontreal [dot] com with the subject line "Mailing List".

Until then, be well and stay crafty!

Photos: Inma Salcedo, Andi State, LP Maurice