Toronto Fashion Week Day 3: Street stylin' once again

Fashion Week Day 3 was great. It was gorgeous and sunny out so I decided to whip out the orange accents. I wore one of my Zara tail shirts, carried around my neon orange leather clutch, wore my new black and orange beaded feather earrings and even put orange eyeshadow on (WOAH). Most people would have been like wtf? to the orange eye shadow idea but I thought I'd try it out and incredibly enough, it didn't look so bad. For the first time in several months I got the chance to wear some serious summer colours and it felt amazing! I also got street style snapped by FASHION magazine

And Silhouetted Skyline. Kinda look like a psycho here but wtvs.

Toronto Fashion Week F/W 2012 Day 3 - Vawk and the sexy samurai

The Vawk F/W 2012 collection, entitled Sci-fi Samurai, was made up of japanese-style structured blazers and dresses (aka Kimono sleeves, straight Samurai-esque lapels) mixed with fur trimmed leather biker jackets and gloves, wide copper leather belts, and copper sequins to give it a sci-fi biker chick feel. The collection mixed the two themes, badass biker and badass japanese chick, to create the ever-so intriguing badass-japanese-biker-chick look. A look, I thought, was pretty damn badass. Having sleek japanese tailoring and biker pieces in the same collection worked really well together. The collection was edgy but sophisticated and serious (like a samurai!) The incorporation of copper sequins and wide copper leather belts gave the show the sci-fi aspect it was going for. Also, the leather caps the models were wearing were super Fifth Element or Blade Runner. Vawk designer Sunny Fong even went a little Girl With a Dragon Tattoo this season with a silk black cutout dress with leather koi fish tattoo detailing. The tattoo detail was also incorporated in other looks like the samurai blazer, and tattoo sleeve gown.

Kimono blazer
photo: Elayne

Samurai blazer with tattoo top
photo: Elayne

Fur trimmed biker jacket
photo: Elayne

Silk kimono dress with leather fur-front biker gloves
photo: Elayne

Silk cut-out dress with koi tattoo detail
photo: Elayne

Plum silk kimono dress with wide copper leather belt
photo: Elayne

Copper sequin finale dress with copper leather belt
photo: Elayne

I went back stage after the show to try and get a interview with the already over-booked designer, and guess who was there. Ms Jeanne Beker! As soon as Sunny Fong saw here he left whatever poor journalist he was talking to to give her a hug and chat it up. I happend to be two inches away from them. Apparently Jeanne really liked the tattoo detail as well.

Sunny Fong and Jeanne Beker backstage
photo: Elayne

Jeanne: "I just looooooooved that tattoo detailing. Fantastic."
Sunny: "Thank you thank you!"
Elayne: in her head - "Wow. I'm totally being a creeper right now.. I should play it cool" (snaps 170 photos)

Toronto Fashion Week F/W 2012 - Day 2 street style post

The number of street style photographers outside the Fashion Week tents was ridiculous. They were everywhere. But getting your photo taken by randoms is kinda fun. And finding photos of yourself on fashion blogs is a super ego-buster. It's nice to know someone out there actually thinks you look good, and/or have a good sense of style. It's a really great compliment. Now, we must remember not to let these kind of things go to ones head. Narcissism is bad... and leads to things like searching blogs for 6 hours straight on a hunt for style shots of yourself (not that I've ever done that..................)

Anyway.......

On Day 2, I went to the shows in one of my school-appropriate outfits (nothing fashiony or look-inspiring) but somehow I managed (I totally don't get why...) to get the attention of several fashion bloggers and Toronto Life. I posted the shots from Toronto Life in an earlier post but feel free to check it out.

Steven Lee of Silhouetted Skyline  snapped a photo of me chillzing in the sun in between shows with a rather WTF face on. People tell me I always look angry. Guess they're right...

Toronto Fashion Week F/W 2012 Day 2 - Chloe Comme Parris (iwantsiwantsiwants!!)

Sisters Chloe and Parris Gordon showed an amazing collection this season during the Chloe Comme Parris runway show on March 13, Day 2 of Fashion Week. The collection was all about mixing girly floral wallpaper prints in muted colours with grunge looks in khaki, grey, and black. Everything that came down the runway was gorgeous and made me want to run back stage after the show and steal every single piece of it. The floral wallpaper print chiffon maxi dress, skirt, and blouse, in muted and subtle colours like blues and earth tones were absolutely gorgeous and no doubt the best pieces of the collection.

Full house at the Chloe Comme Parris show
photo: Elayne

Photo: Dress To Kill magazine

Photo: Elayne

Photo: Dress To Kill magazine

  

Photo: Elayne

These prints were paired with knit sweaters and oversized jackets adorned with distressed metal studs and exposed zippers. There was also a lot of leather on the runway in the form of leather trims, and stud embellished leather tops in khaki and black. The designers also showed a number of accessories such as big fur shrugs and gorgeous distressed jewelry designed by Parris Gordon. The balance between the feminine flowy dresses and the edgy jackets and leather pieces can only be describe as 'Beautiful Badass' - the name of the Chloe Comme Parris f/w 2012 collection. The girls really hit the nail on the head with that title.

Photo: Elayne

Photo: Dress To Kill magazine

Photo: Dress To Kill magazine

Photo: Dress To Kill magazine

Overall my favourite look (I'm definitely not the only one who liked it -- it's graced the pages of almost every review of the CCP runway show this month) is the floral dress paired with a gorgeous orange-tone fur shrug and Parris Gordon's distressed metal brace cuffs.

Photo: Elayne

Photo: Elayne

Toronto Fashion Week Day 2 - Laura Siegel, days in the desert.

The Laura Siegel studio runway show was all about heavy layering, knits, distressed leather, dusty earth tones, and acid-washed pieces. The models, who looked as though they'd just walk out of the Sahara desert ( obviously more fashion-chic and less dehydrated and sweaty...) with huge messy beehive hairdos, thick black eye makeup, and chunky rope accessories with brass accents. Laura Siegel also showed amazing maxi skirts and dresses in monochromatic prints paired with either beige-grey or black combat boots. My favourite piece: a salt and pepper knit sweater complete with novelty holes! The collection was edgy and eclectic but totally wearable. Definitely one of my favourite shows of the week.

Thanks to the beautiful Cannon camera my lovely editor-in-chief at Ryerson Folio lent me for Fashion Week I was able to take some great photos! Too bad I had to give it back.... Anyone want to send me $600 so I can buy myself one? No? ...Okay. Worth a try.

Adrian Wu goes political for Toronto Fashion Week F/W 2012

For a class assignment I had to put together this multi-media interview thing. I did it and it took forever but it turned out to be pretty cool. To listen to the interviews, all you have to do is click on the photos. Sorry about the choppy edits. I kinda suck at editing things.... ENJOY!

Adrian Wu goes political for F/W 2012

by Elayne Teixeira-Millar

On day two of Toronto Fashion Week,  21-year-old designer Adrian Wu sent models down the runway in puffy flannelette gowns and V for Vendetta masks. Shaped around the quote "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people" from James McTeigue's 2005 film V for Vendetta, the collection entitled Hierarchy of Needs, Wu explains, has a more political aspect then his previous season. While his garments are intricately designed and beyond creative, Wu left his audience inspired but confused. Canadian fashion model and celebrity, Stacey McKenzie loved the artistic aspect of collection but admits to not understanding the collection's theme or reason behind the political quote. Fashion TV intern Dana Marson felt the same.

Toronto Fashion Week Day 2 - Adrian Wu and the French farm girls

Day 2 of Toronto Fashion Week was full of crazy, inspiring, and creative designs. It was my first full day of shows and I was truly blow away by it all. There were fashion people and camera crews everywhere. And thanks to my media pass and the fact that I pretended to be big shit ("Um, excuse me, but I need a front row seat. I will be here all week and I need to take photos. You need to figure something out." - Elayne Millar.. no joke) I got to sit front row (for most shows anyway) and go backstage to interview models, designers and all sorts of fashion people. That bitchy media pass photo of mine really worked to scare the poor runway volunteers... Sorry guys. I'm actually really nice in real life....pfffff who am I kidding.

Adrian Wu

The Adrian Wu F/W 2012 show was interesting on a South of France, V for Vendetta, political stand point. The cutely eccentric and always awe-inspiring young designer sent his models down the runway in V for Vendetta masks and huge puffy flannelette gowns. There were several themes/ideas to the show (apple orchards, South of France, politics, Euro and American governments, hidden identities, etc, etc) and so pinpointing a specific one was kind of difficult. The dresses really brought out the French farm girl look, with apron-like accents and polka dot fabric in earthy tones. The studio runway was also decorated with balloon apple trees, which gave the show a kind of fun cartoony-effect. The best piece of the line was definitely, what I like to refer to as, the bum dress. After interviewing a couple of attendees, one being Canadian model and former Canada's Next Top Model judge Stacey MacKenzie, it was obvious that I was not the only one who thought that the bum dress was the highlight of the Adrian Wu show.

 The Bum Dress (teee heee tee hee)

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Backstage with Adrian Wu

After the show I went back stage with my friend Chris Allaire who writes for the style section of Toronto Standard to interview Adrian Wu. He was super nice and excited about how the show went. Make sure to listen his interview in my next post. Should be up really soon.

My favourite part about meeting him - his shoes. Adrian Wu was wearing an amazing pair of platform leather lace-ups and to be completely honest, the first thing I said was "Of course he owns shows like that."