Toronto Fashion Week

LG Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2012

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 17:35:00 -0500

Our coverage of LGFW has moved over to our Fashion & Style section. You can also watch all our new videos via our Fashion Week Vimeo channel.

OR by Angela Chen enchants at LGFW FW 2011

Sun, 03 Apr 2011 20:48:00 -0500

The OR by Angela Chen girl of FW11 is a plucky free spirit. That is, in comparison to her buttoned-up counterpart - the office-chic OR girl of FW10. Chen's fall collection is considerably chilled out, steering away from the crisp sophistication of last year's Fashion Week debut. It even lacked much tie-in to Chen's spring collection of watery boho dresses. I'm not saying it's a bad thing.

I'd like to think that Chen is feeling things out while exploring her inner Martha Stewart. And there's the common thread! She's taken to crafting before - hand-dyed fabric of SS11 and last year's loose-knit cape (also by made hand) were only the beginning. Yesterday, a parade of models (yes, nearly every one of them) donned pieces (or in some cases, entire looks) knit by Chen's very own ten fingers. The result was a collection with a one-of-a-kind quality - that human-error kind of raw that is somehow so appealing.

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Strong diepo debut at LGFW almost worth the hype

Sun, 03 Apr 2011 19:00:00 -0500

The diepo girls are modest. I don't need to know them to know that. They don't appear in the society pages or street style blogs. I've seldom seen them at a "fashion party." I hardly even recognized their work on LGFW's closing evening from when they showed last April at Alternative Fashion Week. And bravo to them.

Justine Diener and Kristin Poon, the duo behind the brand, raised eyebrows last year by showing garments akin to the trend every girl wishes they actually could bear: daywear lingerie (you know, almost pajamas, but not). For their big debut, the pair showed fall like it was spring. Tree stumps lined the Studio space, with lighting trickery designed to appear like sun shadows cast down from treetops.

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LINE Knitwear 2011 takes me back to high school

Sun, 03 Apr 2011 18:14:00 -0500

You know that horrible, creeping feeling you get when you realize that the clothes of your youth have slowly come back into fashion? At 28 years old, this has finally happened to me as the nineties have come back into vogue. And now, LINE's fall/winter 2011 collection is my teen years incarnate.

The knitwear giant filled its fall line with bohemian grunge trademarks, from chunky multi-colour cableknit maxidresses and pastel silk poet blouses to slate-blue cords and crocheted everything.

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Amanda Lew Kee misfires at LGFW Fall / Winter 2011

Sat, 02 Apr 2011 21:54:00 -0500

The Amanda Lew Kee fall/winter 2011 show featured probably the most egregious use of fabric I have seen in several years of Fashion Week coverage. Kee was one of a few Fashion Collective members to snag a coveted Runway spot, but she might not be ready for the big top just yet. Back to the fabrics. MY GOD, THE FABRICS.

I actually uttered, "Oh, my god!" not once but twice as fluffy lamé giftwrap-style fabric floated down the runway in eye-melting shades of copper, royal blue, and hot pink. Then there was a handful of pieces in a shimmering peacock/black 90s-raver fabric. Then there was the vaguely Asian floral splashed with celadon sequins.

Make it stop.

Now, I admire Kee for attempting something daring. Something wild. But a collection lives and dies by its fabrics, and if they look cheap, if they look gaudy...then you're done for.

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Backstage at ATTITUDE Jay Manuel at LGFW 2011

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 22:20:00 -0500

On Wednesday night Sears showed off their new ATTITUDE Jay Manuel line at LG Fashion Week. While we skipped the runway, we did sneak backstage to get an up close and personal look at some of the clothes. See our photo collection below.

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Sunny Fong shows knits, coats at LGFW 2011

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 20:49:08 -0500

Sunny Fong may have went astray last season, but his fall/winter 2011 VAWK collection was one of the best I've ever seen on the runways of Fashion Week here. It was that good.

Coats were the main focus of the collection, and DAY-UM, were they ever spectacular. There was leopard-print ponyhair coats trimmed with white leather and worn over nothing at all ("I WANT THAT COAT" was scrawled across the length of my notebook), fur-trimmed leather car coats, a double-breasted maroon coat with military buttons and a fur-trimmed hood, teal shortie jackets, wool coats adorned with a bold chevron of fur
marching up and down the circumfrence....The creativity with fur and trim was astounding.

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Sid Neigum is dreamy in debut at LGFW

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 13:32:00 -0500

In the opening scene of the movie Black Swan, Natalie Portman's character is dancing feverishly in a dream (or nightmare, in retrospect) with a feather-clad, evil twin brother/swan master of some sort. And so began Sid Neigum's fall/winter 2011 collection - with a similar dude, in a similar coat - entitled, ironically, Wake Up. For the first two minutes, all I kept thinking was, "Bird monster! Bird monster!"

But don't get me wrong, Sid was so good. Coming to Toronto via New York (where he's studying at the Fashion Institute) via Edmonton, Sid's the kind of guy who you can instantly spot in a crowd or, as it seems, on a runway. His cool minimalism - so cool that I'll only refer to him by first name - and stark black palette give strong indications that things will be this way for a while, and he's okay with that.

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Lucian Matis takes over the Design Exchange

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 23:14:00 -0500

This year during LG Fashion Week Lucian Matis decided to embrace Bay Street. His show, entitled CHAOS, was held on the historic trading floor of the Design Exchange, in the middle of the Financial District. But it felt more like the centre of Paris or Milan, as Matis showed a collection worthy of Europe's biggest fashion capitals.

Gold. Black. Silver. A steady stream of statuesque models came down the runway in this glamorous colour palette, which Matis combined in exquisite designs on blazers, coats and dresses with exaggerated shoulders and figure-flattering folds. Chunky knits were paired with intricate beading to create unexpected combinations, like the sexy one-shoulder mini-dress with a black knit bodice detail that had the cozy feel of one of my grandmother's sweaters, but paired with an insanely short beaded hemline of which my dear old Granny would most certainly not approve.

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Despite rumours, David Dixon shows at LGFW (Video)

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 21:47:00 -0500

David Dixon kicked off last night's show - after over an hour delay and swirling twitter rumors of a possible cancellation - with a retrospective of his 16 years as a designer. While I don't begrudge anyone a proper Sweet Sixteen celebration, I wonder, did Dixon really need two? And did we all really need to be invited?

This initial part of the show was hodge-podge and overly sentimental - narrated love letters between his grandparents, old family photos, a cheesy intro video featuring an uncomfortable-looking Dixon. It was a digital scrapbook trainwreck. I'm a fan of taking runway shows to a multimedia level. I love props. And celeb cameos. But not when they distract from the real purpose of the show (the clothes, duh).

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LGFW, swimwear edition (Video)

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 21:45:00 -0500

It didn't feel like fall or winter, but that didn't stop the crowd watching the Shan swimwear runway presentation from enjoying the show. It was tough denying that the floppy hats, string bikinis and full piece suits looked good on the models - with hair and makeup done just so. More visual evidence below.

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Comrags at LGFW FW 2011

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:40:00 -0500

"It's just so...craft," a certain Toronto Life intern told me yesterday, on the subject of Comrags. Or did she mean "kraft", in reference to the muted and textured browns and taupes that often take shape in the label's collections? True, natural fabrics and neutrals are definitely common threads, but brights do creep in each season usually in prints. It's handled in such a great way, but I wasn't a fan of last season's somewhat matronly and dated Spring florals. Or most of the collection, in fact. Comrags needed to win me back.

The FW11 collection did just that. But not immediately. The first dress out - a crumply matte black shift - was in such serious need of Static Guard or at least a slip that it failed to make any sort of impression on me. It bunched and stuck to the model's legwear (cute DIY-esque wool stockings with embroidered buttons accenting the ankle). Awkward.

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Krane a welcome addition to LGFW

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:39:00 -0500

If it weren't for designers like Ken Chow, we would probably overdose on bad Canadian fashion - you know, if fashion were some sort of narcotic (you can get addicted to painkillers, right?). And by that logic, I was on a straight up high at yesterday's Krane show.

Chow, who primarily focuses on menswear, is new to the show schedule this year, but he's been retailing and designing for a few seasons. He's actually one of the few "fresh faces" that has actually established a business when we weren't even looking: A slick website, a sales agency in New York, experience under the tutelage of American heavyweights like Marc Jacobs and Robert Geller.

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Duy inspired by Guinness at LGFW 2011

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:36:00 -0500

After a lukewarm debut last year, it was evident that designer Duy Nguyen was determined to make his namesake line something worth talking about this time around. What better way to do that than choose a muse everyone else in fashion talks about, sometimes? And so, Duy's fall/winter 2011 offering - entitled Long Live Daphne - was inspired by industry-anointed British style icon (and actual socialite globe trotter) Daphne Guinness - yeah, of the beer empire. At least that's what I read in the program.

Still, Duy has improved since we last met. Leather jackets with zebra-print patchwork, cable knit shoulders on mini "mullet" dresses (short and sexy in the front, long and glamorous in the back) and full wool skirts with leather and lace detailing instantly stand out as something worth a second look. Sometimes a little too literal on the Guinness inspiration, there were face pieces - also called or "art' - sometimes (or only once) worn by the heiress, and colour was noticeably absent, relying mostly on dark and muted hues like black and grey and sometimes purple.

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Bustle goes sledding at LGFW 2011 (Video)

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 16:48:00 -0500

I was excited upon entering the Bustle show when I saw props perched at either end of the usually-bare runway. Props! Sleds, in fact, of the variety typically pulled by a team of huskies. They promised a show that would be unconventional and fun. It began with a black-and-white short featuring a dude driving a Landrover and sledding with dogs. A completely pointless video, it did less to establish a mood than the static runway props. Fake snow pumped from the ceiling, but was too sparse to be impactful and the barking dog sounds were only a track. My hopes were already being dashed.

I wanted actual dogs. Or at the very least, some winter gear worthy of sled-dogs and the elements. None of the models seemed bundled enough to run to the convenience store for milk let alone engage in winter sports. The attempt was fun, but no one was smiling (with the exception of cameo-models Aliya-Jasmine Sovani and Wilder Weir). Cognac and axes seemed like afterthoughts. The theme was by now entirely lost on me.

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