September is Back to Style month, and this year we picked four Calgarians who we think embody downtown style.
This year was a little different, as we picked two male style icons who we thought really exhibited the downtown style instead of one. We’ve already introduced you to Jarett, who’s urban inspired street-wear perfectly reflects his personality and love of music and art.
On the other side of the men’s wear coin we have the very dapper Faizal. Wearing a tweed 3-piece suit and a bow tie, Faizal looks like he’s stepped out an episode of ‘Mad Men’.
Having a chat with Faizal, I got an interesting perspective in to where he derives his style.
Born in Calgary to West African immigrants, Faizal grew up in the North East community of Marlborough. As a teenager, he wore the typical uniform of a suburban teen, baggy pants, sports jerseys and baseball caps.
Although as he grew older, Faizal’s taste began to mature after inheriting an old suit of his fathers. From there, he began to see more and more of the people he looked up to wearing suits and it began to rub off on him.
While interviewing Faizal I found an interesting parallel between him and Jarett; an appreciation for Hip-hop. Just like his own maturing tastes, he noticed that rappers like P-Diddy, Jay-Z and Dr. Dre were becoming business men, trading the lavish gold chains for tailored suits.
Now that he’s done with his post-secondary education, Faizal has started a career in social work. He hopes that he can give back to the community by helping new Canadians find and keep gainful employment.
Faizal told me that while he doesn’t always get to wear a nice suit when he’s visiting job-sites across the city, his style carries over in more casual settings so he can put his best foot forward in every situation.
Faizal was chosen as a Style Icon as a part of the Downtown Calgary ‘Back to Style’ event. If you’d like more information on Back to Style and enter to win the Back to Style Grand Prize, click here.
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