Backstage with Laura Siegel and a little bit of Sid

Yes, I know. I suck at pumping out blog posts. And yes, I realize that blogging about Fashion Week almost two months after the fact takes away from the newsiness of it all but come on people, I'm a busy girl. With the constant running around and hours and hours of fashion writing for the Post, I just haven't had the chance to pay attention to my lovely little blog. Fear not! I now have some free time and I will use it to bring my readers up-to-date on all my fashion adventures! Yaaayyyy I'M EXCITED!

First things first, remember that National Post feature I wrote about the behind-the-scenes of the Laura Siegel runway show? Well if you don't, scroll down a bit.. it's all there. During the commotion and last minute fixes backstage I managed to record a little video of all the fun. Check it out! (Please excuse the terrible quality.. I have zero knowledge of techie things like how to upload a video...pffffff I'm an idiot I guess)

Isn't backstage stressful? Who knew, right? And ISN'T LAURA ADORABLE THOUGH! Congratulations girl! Everything worked out in the end and all was amazing.

Day 2 of Fashion Week was definitely super fun. Not only did I get to run around backstage with the Laura Siegel crew, I had a pretty amazing view of the Sid Neigum show from my front seat. I wrote a review of Sid's crazy Matrix-meets-Samurai fall collection for the National Post. If interested, give it a read.

A print piece, finally. Momma's proud!

MY WORK WAS ACTUALLY PUBLISHED IN PRINT THIS WEEEEK!

There. I got it all out. I'll stop yelling now. IT'S JUST SO EXCITING! After years of writing articles for student papers and magazines, and magazine websites, I finally got an feature story published in an actual national newspaper. One of my favourite university profs once told me that your first print piece should be something you treasure and that it's totally not a loser thing to frame it and put it up on your wall as inspiration. I might just do that. I'd need to find a big frame though. It's kind of a full page spread (bahahhahahh!!!).

Prep a Porter, a designer rundown by Elayne Teixeira-Millar
published in the Tuesday March 19 2013 edition of the National Post.

If you had the pleasure of stumbling upon my article in Tuesday's edition of the National Post you may ignore the remainder of this post. For everyone else, please give my designer cheat sheet a read. It's a rundown of what shows to look out for at Toronto Fashion Week and I'm pretty proud of it.

I had originally wanted to post this announcement with a Spring 2013 trend recap but since I'm drowning in Fall 2013 stuff (fashion calendars are so annoying...it's almost spring and they have me studying turtle necks, leather pants and wool coats..) I just simply don't have the time. Maybe next week?

The online edition, for those who think papers are dead.
nationalpost.com

Backstage at The Collections - pre-Fashion Week S/S2013

This season Toronto's Fashion Week went a little mental. With all the commotion about IMG Fashion Worldwide buying TFW, several designers and people of the Toronto fashion industry got a little freaked and decided to do their own thing as to not get all corrupted by the big business man.

IMG owns and runs 10 of the biggest Fashion Weeks in the world, the most important being New York Fashion Week. According to an article in The Toronto Star, the vice-president of IMG, Peter Levy, says the company bought TFW so they can transform it into a huge fashion event recognized world wide. That would be pretty cool I guess...I'd have an 'in' already! hahaha. 

Anyway, the point of all this is: last year's TFW headliners bailed on World MasterCard Fashion Week and signed up for what the industry is now calling the "Rogue Shows" aka The Collections and The ShOws. Both runway events were two-days long, running from Oct.16 - 17, and were 100% cooler than WMCFW just because they were THAT much more ALTERNATIVE. (lol so hipster though. gotta love those creative-types, always trying to stick it to the man.) 

The Collections played host to edgier labels like Laura Siegel, Chloe Comme Parris, Label, Klaxon Howl, Sid Neigum and Cara Cheung while The ShOws presented the more "couture" lines like Jean-Pierre Braganza, Antonio Azzuolo and Jeremy Laing. Due to my crazy amount of school work (yay university mid-term season...) I couldn't make it to any of lines at The ShOws, but I did get to attend The Collections. I was given an all-access backstage pass! I got to run around backstage with all the models, makeup artists, and hair people, and I got to sit in front row. FUNZIES! 

Because I'm so behind on life, I still haven't gotten my runway reviews done for Dress to KILL yet..but I'm getting there I promise... For now please enjoy some of the backstage photos I took! 

Models in Chloe Comme Parris S/S 2013

Black talon nails for Cara Cheung 

Pink eyelashes for Laura Siegel

Caveman breads for Cara Cheung

Bright eyes for S/S 2013!

Chloe Comme Parris prep braids for big curly hair 

Aveda products! love this stuff.

Chloe and I being shits. As usual.

Model of Laura Siegel 

Last minute pre-runway huddle before Laura Siegel show

6 stylists for 1 model backstage at Label

Dark eyes for Sid Neigum

MAC makeup backstage 

Nylon caps and dark eyes for Sid Neigum

Charcuterie table for all those hungry fashion people. I think I survived on almonds... Damn you vege-unfriendly people

Model after Cara Cheung show with her fashion dog Ella.