FASHION Magazine

When 19-year-old artist Nathan Loberg spilled paint on his best friend’s jeans, it planted the seed for Groe, his custom design company. Feeling guilty, he made it up to his pal by painting on the same denim, simultaneously camouflaging the mess and transforming a humble pair of pants into a piece of wearable art. Loberg’s friend Mike Wasnidge spotted the potential in this creation and saw it as a prime business opportunity. And so Groe Custom Clothing was born.

Back from Barcelona with a taste for the Gaudier things, could I have been happier to find a surrealist menagerie camped out in my own backyard? Not literally, of course, but then nothing’s literal when it comes to Surreal Things, the Art Gallery’s winking look into the dreamworld of Dalí & Co.

The other day, I snuck in for a peek, came out reeling, and can say this and mean it: you must see for yourself.

I’ve got five words to say about NSCAD University’s 19^th annual Wearable Art Show: thank god it was good. Taking a turn from the bar venues WAS has occupied as of late, organizers Sarah Roy and Bree Mackin brought the AIDS Coalition of NS fundraiser to the streets, piling the event’s hundreds of guests under a tented portion of the city’s Granville Mall.

A novel idea, really, except that it was raining, gusty and bloody cold. Within minutes, my coifed bob was flattened, my notebook pages were rippling and the jots of ink on my program were running. The evening’s hosts—Brian MacQuarrie and Bill Wood of Halifax-based sketch comedy group, Picnicface—even distributed shammies to audience members on either side of the runway’s potentially troublesome wet spot.

But all those grisly details got swept away with the frigid wind when the 2009 WAS unveiled some truly spectacular pièces d’arts.

When our own Jordan Porter showed up for the first day of Toronto Fashion Week sporting pearls attached to a vintage brooch and an oversized blush pink rose, we all attacked in our usual way: “OMG your necklace!” and “Where did you get that?”

“It’s Maryam’s.”

Maryam being Maryam Keyhani, one-time FASHION intern and designer of some of the most beautiful neckwear we’ve come across in a long while. One of her unapologetically girly pieces has already been spotted this week adorning the neck of FDCC president Robin Kay at the Holt Renfrew Media Cocktail.

Shoes have become one of the most sought after fashion items on the runway. Women have been known to spend $14,000 on a pair of Manolo Blahnik alligator boots. Sex and The City even dedicated an entire episode, “A Woman’s Right to Shoes,” to Carrie’s relationship with her designer heels. So perhaps women barbarically wrestling one another over a pair of Pucci boots in Confessions of a Shopaholic may not be so unbelievable after all?

After a Zen retreat from holiday excesses, we’re whirling back into social life with some really hot ideas to help us get through the next few waves of cold:

Montreal Highlights (to March 1): if you’re a foodie or a culture aficionado you know where to go: montrealhighlights.com.

The Drake was the place to be last week (seriously though, when isn’t it?), as the hotel celebrated its 5th anniversary.

Melissa Trainor and Niki Trosky are two local ladies who really know how to throw a party.

The symphony of colours, patterns, textures, forms and silhouettes in fashion transcribes into a cultural and historical dialogue into the Textile Museum of Canada’s exhibit, The Cutting Edge (to July 7, $12, 55 Centre Ave., 416-599-5321, textilemuseum.ca).

When I get around to it, I’m totally going to wallpaper my dining room. I’m thinking a black and white damask pattern. In the meantime, I can enjoy starting at the beautiful pattern on the bottles of this hand wash ($12) and lotion ($14) by Daub & Bauble (daubandbauble.com).

Today, we’ve got a guest blogger: FASHION’s editor-in-chief, Ceri Marsh

On Tuesday night, Toronto’s fashion and art crowd were like kids let loose in a toy store at the new AGO. We were greeted by white clad “angels” handing out small mirrors we’d need later to participate in Terence Koh’s performance piece. We were then whisked upstairs to the Baillie Court reception space. So beautiful! Guests entered a fairy tale forest, with origami cranes and candles fluttering in branches placed on every table.

A few years ago Mattel announced that, after 43 years of dating, its plastic bombshell had ended her love affair with Ken. A woman with dozens of jobs under her belt, from NASCAR driver to paleontologist, even Barbie couldn’t keep it together. At the time I remember feeling baffled by all the media attention their break-up demanded—maybe because I was more of a My Little Pony kind of girl.