Runway May 17, 2014

Fashion Art Toronto: FAT 2014

I had the pleasure of receiving a media pass to

Fashion Art Toronto, where Fashion and Art collide.

(April 22-26th)

I have never attended a Fashion Art Toronto Show before, so I had no idea what to expect other then the usual runway. I went for 2 nights as my schedule didn’t allow me to squeeze in more days. In my opinion I think I choose the best days to go! Click here for the week schedule. I’m trying something different and instead of only pictures, I have some videos from the show.

Let’s start from the beginning.

The venue was Daniels Spectrum. Upon entering there’s a piano that is open to the public to use. Everytime I passed by that piano someone was there with music sheets practising and learning how to play the piano. What a great way to give back to the community!

There was a lounge area for people to relax and wait for the show to start or closer to the entrance of the runway floor was an exhibit of 5-8 exhibits.

There was one exhibit where clothes were made out of old leather shoes. The shoes were stripped apart, and layed flat to create the clothing.

There there was the live exhibit where a lady and a man sat in front of mirrors which seemed like the environment surrounding them was a bedroom. They just sat and looked at themselves in the mirror, stood up a few times to fix their hair and stretch. They never made eye contact with their audience as if we weren’t there and we were peering into their bedrooms and watching their every move. Awkwaaardd.

After I took in all of the exhibits, I made my way to the runway floor to find my seat. I was fortunate enough to sit in the second row, where the view of the show was just perfect.

Here’s Tuesdays line -up of designers that I watched:

Theme: Earth/Industry

RUNWAY
7:05pm
WALLACE PLAYFORD (Toronto)
7:15pm
EOLITH (Toronto / Montreal)
7:25pm
SIMONE’S ROSE (Toronto)

Wallace Playford had a funky east meets west approach to designs for this show. Honestly, reminded me of the Chanel show where there were pearls and turbans as well.

For more images from this show click here.

Thursday theme: Masculine/Feminine:

RUNWAY
7:00pm
ADAM X ATELIER (Toronto)

7:20pm
PORTE (Toronto)

7:30pm
WORTH BY DAVID C WIGLEY (Toronto)

FASHION/PERFORMANCE/RUNWAY
8:30pm
FLUTURA & BESNIK HAXHILLARI – drawingmovingtable (Montreal, QC)
8:40pm
BENJI WZW (Toronto)
8:50pm
DIODATI (Montreal, QC)

9:00pm
L’UOMO STRANO (Toronto)

All in all this was a great show. Different from the shows I’ve went to before. My favourite was Atelier, partly because he worked closely with Alexander McQueen and I love his designs.

See you all next year!

Runway March 29, 2014

Fashion Night at the Windsor Arms

Fashion Night was an exclusive and invite-only event that took place on Friday, October 25th at The Windsor Arms Hotel in Toronto during the final night of the 2013 Toronto Fashion Week.

It was a cold day and one hour before the Fashion Night show started at 9:30pm it was chaos outside the Windsor Arms doors. People who had invitations were patiently waiting to go inside, until news passed around that they were at max capacity. Worried and eager to get inside the pushing to get to the front commenced and I was lucky enough to get inside and be in the third row!

The show was hosted by Canada’s Next Top Model judge Stacey McKenzie, and co-hosted by celebrity hair extraordinaire, Jie Matar. The fashion show featured Canadian designers Evan Biddell and Whitney Linen. For worldwide designers there was China’s Han Couture, Italy’s Tosca Delfino, and Royalz Clothing. Toronto’s local star DJ Fizza, and superstar violinist Eugene Draw aka Dr. Draw entertained the audience with an amazing performance on the catwalk.

Toronto’s hip hop artist from back in the day, Choclair took the stage and performed a few of his songs. All in all it was a great event and I can’t wait for the next one!

Check out this video for highlights of the show:

Runway March 21, 2014

Fashion Show: David Dixon Fall 2014 Collection

Back in the day when I was behind the scenes putting together Fashion Shows or one of the head make-up artists, it was very different. I blame those experiences for my high expectations of a show.

“I love seeing the runway come to life. Not just models walking down the runway, but the whole theme that wraps and showcases around the beautiful designs, that designers put their hearts and sweat into making.”

Speaking of beautiful designs, on the second day of Toronto Fashion Week, David Dixon introduced his White Label bridal collection.

I had the pleasure of sitting and meeting with Sharadha Ramjit (@Sharadha_Ra), Producer and wearer of many hats at Corus Entertainment, CP24‘s Patricia Jaggernauth (@Patricia_J), Cristina Tenaglia, Reporter for CP24 (@cristina_CP24) and of course Stacey Mackenzie, who I’ve seen and spoken to at other shows.

The show begins with a short film about love. Rose petals fall on screen and then wedding bells start to ring. A model in a modern wedding dress appears, ready for the catwalk.

Most of the models wore short, tucked away hair or rather low bun hairstyles. Simple, soft, natural makeup and a romantic red lip, was the hair and make-up theme for this modern take on wedding attire.

Dixon’s White Label Collection consisted of pastel white, pink and peach designs.

Pastel pink peplum frill:

Low Twist Bun:

Flower accents:

My favourite peplum dress:

What I wore to the the show.

Events February 28, 2014

Wearable Tech in Fashion

Wearable technology has come a long way. There was that brief time in history when some people either didn’t understand bluetooth ear pieces or just simply hated them. I reckon mostly because they thought they were being talked too, but in reality the person was talking into their ear piece. Now technology has evolved into being a part of us.

Now we’ve been seeing technology hit the runways! DVF (Diane von Furstenberg) used the Google glasses to capture the DVF creative process from a different perspective, which was accomplished by having the people involved with the entire process of making the show happen, by wearing Google glasses.

DVF created a short film to show her Fashion Show through the model, stylist and designers eyes via Google glass:

Then there’s the new dress that changes colour depending on a woman’s mood. The Bubelle Dress is made up of two layers, the inner layer contains biometric sensors that pick up a person’s emotions and projects them in colours onto the second layer, the outer textile.

Following the trend that only continues to grow, Social Media Week in New York had Tech In Motion host a Wearable Tech Fashion Show.

To mention a few of the contributors of the show:

Atlas Wearables (Austin): Presenting fitness tracker
Augmate (NYC): Presenting Google Glass and Vuzix m100
BrickSimple (Philly): Presenting Google Glass
Continuum Fashion (NYC): Presenting 3D printed shoes
Everpurse (Chicago): Presenting chargeable clutches
Sensoree (San Fran): Presenting mood clothing

If you missed the Fashion Show you can watch it below via livestream:

The health and fitness market brought out many products that look great when worn. Bands that measure how much you’ve run, check your heart beat or measure your health in various categories.

What will be the next best thing when Fashion and Technology collide? 3D printed clothes, clothes that change based on weather automatically? With imagination and determination, anything is possible.

Check out this infographic for more info about current day wearable tech: