Fall Fashion Flashbacks - Mackage, VAWK and Caitlin Power F/W 2013 shows at Toronto Fashion Week

Guess what tomorrow is everyone!
It's October, which means fall fashion is here! YAY! Layering! Fall colours! Fall fabrics, patterns and actual clothing! Yes, yes, yesssss, don't get me wrong, I love the summer and its trends. I even wrote a fun summer trend report a few months back for the Post. You can check it out here! It's all about the crazy music festival attire we all love to flaunt around in during the hot days of summer.
Actually, it's a good read for right now. Think of it as a checklist of the things you should be putting away to make room for all the fall loveliness! Bye crochet denim mini shorts... see you next festival season :(

Coachella
Photo: National Post

I love the heat and the tans and the shorts and sun dresses, and the lazy relaxation of it all but lets be honest... summer fashion is fine, fun and okay. Fall fashion, however is EXCITING AND WILD AND GIVES YOU SO MUCH MORE TO WORK WITH! (Can you sense my excitement?...I'll try to tone it down not to offend my booty-short and side-boob loving readers. I feel you guys. Don't worry.)

Here are a few articles I wrote on the Mackage, Vawk, and Caitlin Power F/W 2013 shows for the National Post. Flashbacks, if you will, of the trends of last season's Toronto Fashion Week runways to get everyone as excited as I am for all the wonderfulness that is fall fashion.

Fall Flashback: Mackage F/W 2013 (full article)

Designers Elisa Dahan and Eran Elfassy took full advantage of the animal kingdom with a fur-and-leather heavy, street style-inspired line. The biker grunge collection went beyond the usual fur-trimmings we've been seeing so far on the F/W 2013 runways of Toronto Fashion Week.

Photo: National Post

Fall Flashback: VAWK F/W 2013 (full article)

Be it through fur trims and details, leather accents, feathered accessories, or animal graphic sweaters, designer Sonny Fong's collection played tribute to the nature of the north.

Photo: Elayne 

Photo: Elayne

Fall Flashback: Caitlin Power F/W 2013 (full article)

Designer Caitlin Power's muse of fall 2013 was the professional Parisian of the future. the sexy silhouette and high-gloss patent leather detailing in metallic silver, navy, bronze and burgundy makes you feel as though you've time-travelled to Paris and it's the year 2025.

Photos: Elayne
National Post 

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

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)