FASHION Magazine

See all the photos from The Libertine launch party »

In the grand tradition of secret bars and speakeasies, The Libertine may have one of the best locations out there. Hidden behind a tarot card reader’s business, the basement entrance to Toronto’s newest restaurant is sure to prompt many double takes. However, thanks to the crowd that gathered for last night’s launch party, the secretive snack bar is destined to become quite well known in the months to come.

A mix of fashion and foodie guests mingled while hand-crafted cocktails and bites of fried chicken made the rounds. Anita Clarke, wearing a custom plaid Philip Sparks jacket, looked just as dapped as her well-suited table mates, including the designer himself and NOW’s Andrew Sardone. Holt Renfew’s Blaire Borins matched the mysterious mood of the decor in a slate-grey Greta Constantine dress while ornamental necklaces and bright lipsticks were accessory of choice for other guests.

See the Queen’s Plate Hats & Horseshoes party photos »

Horse races and ladies in fancy hats make for a most stylish pairing. From the Kentucky Derby to the Royal Ascot to Canada’s very own Queen’s Plate, an afternoon at the race track demands a wide-brimmed hat. (Or, in the case of a fascinator, a hat as tall as it could be wide!) This past Sunday saw the 154th running of the Queen’s Plate and many of Toronto’s most fashionable crowd made the journey to Woodbine Racetrack, hats in tow. To celebrate the race, Woodbine’s annual Hats & Horseshoes party took over the grounds around the walking ring, bringing together food trucks, betting stations, a Grey Goose-sponsored VIP lounge and, of course, the aforementioned stylish racing fans. Milliner David Dunkley was also on hand with many of his couture creations available for partygoers to try on—or buy if they happened to arrive sans hat. Compared to previous Queen’s Plate races, this weekend it was quite apparent that fashion has become a huge focus. Yee haw!

See the Power Ball 2013 party photos »

Last night, Power Ball 2013 a.k.a. the art party of the year/social event of the season and so on and so forth went down at The Power Plant gallery on Toronto’s harbourfront. Despite the rain, the city’s finest art, fashion and social types filled the expansive space in designer gowns, costumes, and in one instance, a birthday suit. Celebrating its 15^th year under the guise of Andy Warhol’s famous line “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes,” the space was tricked out with Factory-worthy silver foil which made for some pretty fierce voguing props for designer Jeremy Laing and Frank Griggs much later in the evening. Power Ball’s famed exhibitions and installations were omnipresent as always, including a fortune-telling psychic, Chat Roulette-style wall projections, and two twisted prom queens dancing around a birthday cake and a mounted spinning motorcycle all night long. Curiouser and curiouser…

See 12 Power Ball wardrobe picks »

Power Ball is but a day away, and as you can imagine, it has Toronto’s creative crowd in an anticipatory tizzy. For the 15th year in a row, The Power Plant’s annual fundraiser has managed to maintain “art party of the year” status and this year is sure to be no different. As such, you can imagine the importance placed on wardrobing. If you’re going to this year’s event and still don’t know what to wear, we turned to 9 of the city’s most stylish (plus 3 FASHION editors!) for clues as to what they are wearing. For more, see last year’s coverage.

Tickets are still available at thepowerplant.org but by this time tomorrow they’re likely to disappear. Get ‘em while they’re hot!

See the Greta Constantine Fall 2013 collection photos »
See the Greta Constantine Fall 2013 party photos »

Continuing the tradition of showing their collections off schedule and off the grid, Greta Constantine designers Kirk Pickersgill and Stephen Wong debuted their Fall 2013 offering with a restaurant meets art party meets impromptu runway show last night in Toronto. Beginning at the west end hotspot Parts & Labour, the duo hosted the city’s top media and clients for a three-course meal, interrupted of course, by many shots of Stolichnaya vodka. As Greta-clad guests including Cronenberg It girl Sarah Gadon, socialite Stacey Jordan (formerly Kimmel) and trend forecaster Carly Stojsic indulged in main courses of chicken and gnocchi, Amazonian models took to the makeshift runway (aka the bar) in the duo’s latest wares. The clothes, while heavily styled with tribal inspiration—think long braids, faux mohawks and animal skulls worn as jewellery designed by Dandi Maestre—forged ahead with last season’s new motto: sleeker, stronger and relatively pared back. Amongst the pleated and curved statement dresses, the standout look was a long and lean cow’s hide coat paired with black wideleg pants and a simple white crew neck.

See all the photos from the Toronto Life Spring Stylebook launch party »

Is there a better indication that spring has finally sprung than an empty coat check room at a party? Such was the case at the launch for the spring issue of the Toronto Life Stylebook—there was an abundance of sheer dresses, bare legs and strappy sandals but not a single winter accessory in sight. Adding to the spring atmosphere were Edward Scissorhands-worthy topiaries that dotted the Distillery District’s Fermenting Cellar and greeted guests at the party’s entrance.

Speaking of guests, Toronto Life Stylebook cover girl Sarah Gadon was a perfect fit for the role of guest of honour, wearing a sleek blue and black Greta Constantine dress from the Fall 2013 collection. Considering that many of the partygoers have appeared on most-fashionable lists (be it Toronto Life’s or elsewhere) it was hard to stay focused on one outfit for more than a few seconds. The Beckerman sisters kept things colourful with Samantha in a neon accented blouse and Caillianne in a pastel floral-print dress. Florals certainly were the uniform of choice for the party—from vibrant digital prints to whispy petals, watching the crown was like witnessing an Erdem and Mary Katranzou-themed Pinterest board come to life.

See The Room’s Viktor & Rolf party photos »

Viktor & Rolf’s love affair with Toronto began last night with a fittingly springy fête at Toronto’s Hudson’s Bay Queen Street flagship. In town to celebrate their recent collections as well as to do press spots for their upcoming Dolls retrospective exhibit with Luminato this summer, designers Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren sported matching embroidered jeans (Horsting’s featured sunglasses while Snoeren’s featured moustaches) and matching thick rimmed frames, making them the ideal models for Toronto’s new eyewear-specific blog, The Spectacled.

In keeping with the Dutch duo’s eccentricities, The Room was transformed with newly papered walls featuring the Fall 2013 runway room’s eerie black and white floral print, a string quartet playing instrumental takes on pop music and strapping waiters, who passed many a prettily-decorated Perrier-Jouët champagne flute while wearing V&R-esque (and maybe even a little Denis Gagnon) glasses.

See photos from the Holt Renfrew Rag & Bone party »

Toronto is so desperate for springtime, that not even last night’s biblical style storm wouldn’t stop its style inclined inhabitants from flocking to Holt Renfrew for a party in honour of Rag & Bone’s neon-heavy spring collection. Packed to the racks of the department store’s third floor, partygoers—including designers Marcus Wainwright and David Neville, who made it in the nick of time after hours of flight delays—seemed especially eager to throw down to the DJ tunes and get crafty with the makeshift graffiti board that had been installed on a nearby wall.

And now for the fashion: Spring’s graphic black and white trend was embraced by many partygoers, most notably by stylist Mariko Lauren who channeled Wednesday Adams in a peter pan collar dress and wide brimmed hat and the always-fabulous Kealan Anne Sullivan, who artfully paired a vintage policeman’s hat with a black velvet cape, a white turtleneck sweater and beat up jeans. Socialite Stacey Kimmel braved gravity in a skin-baring halter black dress with selectively geometric fabric slashes. And at the other end of the spectrum, designer/photographer Ashley Rowe went for the kaleidoscopic effect with her lime green active suit suit, turquoise-dyed hair and gal pal stylist Cara Joy Purkis who wore head-to-toe red.

See the street style photos from Toronto Fashion Week »

Day two of World MasterCard Fashion Week Fall 2013 is all about the transition. With the weather teetering between winter and a chilly spring, those attending shows at David Pecault Square turned to leather and fur yet again for the answer to the question, “will I be warm enough in this?” (Chances are, those only in leather jackets were still cold.)

Faux fur collars were seen on multiple attendees including I Want, I Got’s, Anita Clarke, who had her thinking face on as she stared into her iPhone on day two. Gotta send those tweets, y’all! Our Style Panel‘s Krystin Lee took serious inspiration from Marc Jacobs’ spring collection in a well, Marc Jacobs T-shirt and a stark black and white striped floor-length skirt. This look was accented with a red bag and statement necklace so we think it’s safe to say she’s been keeping up with our Spring 2013 trends guide.

See our street style photos from Toronto Fall 2013 Fashion Week »

It’s back! Toronto’s twice-annual semi official off-the-grid fashion week, The Shows, began last night at the east side furniture emporium, Andrew Richards Design. Debuting with two back-to-back shows from local staple, Comrags (celebrating its 30th anniversary), and Canadian-born London-based designer Jean Pierre Braganza, we were treated to a little taste of Fall 2013 on a day when we were still feeling the everlasting effects of the season for this year. To our pleasant surprise, however, the frigid temps had little effect on show attendees, who illuminate this first street style photo gallery in their fashion week best.

Judy Inc. stylist Odessa Paloma Parker defied winter in a spring-ready camel trench, a holographic coloured Kate Spade clutch and her mega-printed dress/scarf combo. Once again (ahem), blogger Anita Clarke showed off the power of the offbeat pose, with her perfect mid-jump snapped by our street style photographer extraordinaire, Stefania Yarhi. Meanwhile, designer Jeremy Laing’s signature curls were caught looking ever so windswept as he spent time outside between shows.

Flip through our gallery, we daresay you’ll be delighted.

See the photos from RAFF’s opening night »

As it’s getting to be in Toronto, there are so many festivals, exhibits, parties and things to see, that you can’t very well see ‘em all. And while we once would have lamented over the lack of such a problem, we’ve got it now for better or for worse. In order for a working art mind to grow, you have to work hard not to let any potentially mind-opening experiences fall through the cracks, and that’s why despite the weather, I dragged myself out into the cold on Wednesday night for the opening of the Real Artists Film Festival (RAFF) held at the TIFF Lightbox. In its 10^th year, RAFF brings some of the best art-related documentaries to the city, this year launching with an excerpted version of Megumi Sasaki’s Herb & Dorothy 50×50, the follow-up to the 2008 original, Herb & Dorothy. The original tells the story of Herbert and Dorothy Vogel, the postman and librarian also known as the “proletarian art collectors,” who amassed a collection of almost 5,000 works of contemporary art in their one bedroom Manhattan apartment. Collecting only what they liked, could carry home on the subway and could afford (while living solely on Dorothy’s income and using Herb’s for art), the Vogels amassed one of the biggest collection of post-1960s minimal and conceptual art in the world which includes such lauded artists as Sol LeWitt, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, John Chamberlain, Chuck Close, Mark Kostabi and Charles Clough.

See our Design Exchange gala photos »

Toronto’s creative elite was treated to a veritable feast for the eyes at last Friday’s annual Design Exchange gala, this year revamped and restyled under the theme of “Intersection.” Surely meant to rival the glittering reputation held by the Power Plant’s annual Power Ball gala for being the art party of the year, the event succeeded in being everything it wanted to be—part art exhibit, part auction, party VIP hobnob and part knockout bash—complete with guest of honour Douglas Coupland posing for pictures, making speeches and even imitating a Canada goose.

Various phases of the night stretched across parts of the DX I didn’t even know existed. Case in point: a pop up mystery dinner put on by Matty Matheson of Parts + Labour catering, which took place in a dimly lit library overlooking King Street. There was trout roe, but where were the books?