FASHION Magazine
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Inside last night’s Rodarte party at the Bay: Toronto’s finest, freshly sunned partygoers oohing and aahing around the sisters Mulleavy
Photography by Jenna Marie Wakani Last night, the sister duo behind one of fashion’s darling labels, Rodarte, descended upon Toronto for a fête in their honour at the Bay’s glittering designer den, The Room. As the finest champagne flowed, the city’s finest, freshly sunned partygoers crowded around Laura and Kate Mulleavy to get a look—albeit a look-but-don’t-touch. “You can’t just sidle up beside them and say, ‘I love you,’” one guest lamented. And isn’t it strange but true? The moment one of your idols is presented on a platter, the nerves tend to overcome. Such wasn’t the case, however, for Toronto’s version of the sister power duo, Chloé and Parris Gordon of Chloé Comme Parris, who got in there to articulate their crush. (I was afforded a private one-on-two with the designers earlier in the day, the gush-laden results of which are forthcoming).
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TFW Diary: Chloé Comme Parris does “Venus in Furs” for fall
Photography by Jenna Marie Wakani View the full collection »
View the backstage beauty »
See all Toronto Fashion Week coverage »I’m a fan of any fashion show that starts off with the Velvet Underground’s “Venus in Furs.” Combo that tune-age with yet another stellar collection from one of the city’s most promising labels, and well, I think you’ve got a winner. Such was the case at Chloé Comme Parris’s fall showing yesterday, as the sister duo churned out a 1990s-meets-1890s outing of snakelike cigarette pants, elongated moto-cross jackets bedazzled with heavy silver nobs, and loosely tailored suiting. There was fur too, and it felt delicate alongside moody silk Liberty-esque prints on spaghetti dresses, pleated skirts and camisoles. Quite like a Venus in furs, wouldn’t you say?
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TFW diary: A spellbinding neo-Victorian spring at Chloé Comme Parris
Photography by Jenna Marie Wakani View the runway photo gallery »
View our studio invasion »I shouldn’t pick favourites, but I’ll do it anyways. Maybe it’s because we share a fondness for all things Victorian, or maybe it’s just because the clothes were that good, but halfway through LG Fashion Week, I was already utterly spellbound by Chloé Comme Parris Spring 2012. After a similarly stellar LG debut last season, sister duo of Chloé and Parris Gordon took us back to the late 1800s, minus the wasp waists and lack of gender equality. “We were really looking at raised necklines and detailing and interesting ways of cinching in a waist or pleating and draping, but looking at how to reduce these silhouettes that can’t really be worn today because they are so voluminous and so ornate,” said sister Chloé when we visited the studio last week. The sisters’ look at the era was apparent, from delicate woven lace-like trousers and jumpers, to the William Morris-like print appearing on several dresses (the finale dress was a dead ringer for a neo-sack dress à la Pre-Raphaelite muse Jane Morris). Updated with interesting cropping (a jean jacket cut just below the collar comes to mind), sexy slits, and cross-body pearl necklaces, it’s without any sort of hometown inhibition that I can honestly say—if there was such a thing as a thousand star rating, this collection would have it. In my books, at least.
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Toronto Fashion Week: Chloé Comme Parris makes a promising runway debut
CHLOÉ COMME PARRIS Spring 2011. Photography by Jenna Marie Wakani Sisters and design partners Chloé and Parris Gordon brought their Chloé Comme Parris label to the LG Fashion Week runway for the first time yesterday afternoon. It was a promising start for the Toronto natives, who already sell their line at two Toronto boutiques. Chloé, who designs the clothing, is a graduate of NSCAD, where Parris, in charge of jewellery, is in her last year.
The clothes were both military- and athletic-inspired–though not too obviously either one. For example, polished brass buttons running up the legs of slouchy sweats. The cutaway jackets and dresses offered a twist–an olive green utility jacket featured long panel at the back that zipped away–ditto the belts, which were found around the neck of a sleeveless blouse or hanging from the bottom of a cropped baseball jacket. All the cut-outs also offered some flashes of skin in unexpected places. A favourite came from a striped dress whose skirt was attached with metal buttons, partially undone for a peek of the hips.
See a gallery of the Chloé Comme Parris show»
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Halifax: NSCAD students steal the first Atlantic Fashion Week show
A look from Alison Seary's Spring 2010 collection, presented at Atlantic Fashion Week. Photography by Brent McCombs Following in Atlantic Fashion Week tradition, the first designer showcase of Halifax’s two-night AFW kicked off in the Mercedes-Benz showroom on Kempt Road last Wednesday with work by current students of Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University. Unlike the past, however, their unveiling didn’t whip by with only the ghost of a few key pieces lingering in its wake. Instead, the NSCAD students, their designs rich with imagination and artistry, have completely swallowed my memory of the evening. Our art college, ever strengthening its fashion department, must be doing something right.
Read a round-up of the shows, after the jump.
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Halifax: NSCAD’s Wearable Art block party
A piece by Bree Mackin at NSCAD's Wearable Art show. Photography by Anna Gilkerson. I’ve got five words to say about NSCAD University’s 19th 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.
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Halifax: Chloé Gordon ruffles a few feathers
I tried to avoid it. In an effort to sidestep a tragically fou-for-feathers diagnosis, I pushed aside the urge to tell you all about the stunning bit of plumage I’ve had dangling from my lobe for weeks. I kept my satisfaction silent and brushed off any “Love your earring!” praise with an I’ve-had-it-for-years shrug. But when the compliments passed the half-dozen mark, I turned a feather-grazed cheek to all those who pooh-pooh plumage and reached for my laptop. This, I’ve gotta share.
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