FASHION Magazine

See the Operanation 2014 party pics » As I mentioned earlier this month, this year was my first time co-chairing Operanation, the annual gala benefiting the Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio, amongst other things. As such, it’d be something along the lines of self-important to dub Operanation 2014 the best party of the season/year/century so […]

The post Operanation 2014: 38 party photos from inside this year’s gala turned rave appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

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For its latest cool kid party, Ossington designer den Jonathan + Olivia threw down for Christmas at Wrongbar on Queen Street West. With DJ tunes from Toronto allstars like Brendan Canning, Frank Griggs and Members Only (plus one relative newbie a.k.a. me), the crowd grooved as hard as one might imagine a bunch of west enders to do on a cold winter’s night. Guests including Clint Roenisch, Chanel Croker, Kealan Anne Sullivan, Jeremy Laing, Paria Shirvani and Misshapes DJ Geordon Nicol kept the party going till way past midnight. And while the mood may have been festive, attendees clung to their black on black on black staples cause what says happy holidays more than a biker jacket and a beard? That was a trick question.

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The Room at Hudson’s Bay went full Anglo on Tuesday night with its celebration of two Brit shoe designers, Nicholas Kirkwood and Sophia Webster. Held in the store’s palatial new shoe department (seriously, it’s 20,000 square feet), the soiree served as a shoe shopping kick off as well as, well, just another excuse to party. Toronto’s style setters were in fine pre-fashion week form, pulling out all the outfit stops and the Nicholas Kirkwood chevrons to boot.

Kim Tanenbaum modelled her mother-in-law Carole Tanenbaum’s jewels just perfectly overtop an all-black outfit and Kirkwood’s wholesale director Josephine Papasavvas brought the party’s requisite Peter Pilotto factor alongside a stomach-bearing crop top. West end cred was sufficiently represented by Prince Innocence’s Talvi Faustmann and Josh McIntyre, who matched in long black trench coats. Hair statementing was a thing too, especially for a certain top-knotted shoe associate who delighted us with his kabuki-like appearance and definitive newness on the scene. You go girl.

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On Wednesday night, Ossington Avenue boutique Jonathan + Olivia kicked of Toronto Fashion Week in high style with a party celebrating homegrown designers Jeremy Laing, Calla and Horses Atelier. Swapping digs for the night, the must-have den brought it’s cool kid friends to the revamped Storys Building, which now boasts a swanky bar set up. Fresh off The Shows, guests including stylists Cary Tauben, Corey Ng and crop cut queen Chanel Croker tripled the double C effect, while Bad Day Magazine editor Eva Michon and Jeremy Laing communications director Frank Griggs lent their tunes to the night in the DJ booth. Many guests wore black, because obviously.

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 party photos from “This is Queen Street West” »

Already a favourite spot with the fashion set, add a worthy cause to a party at Toronto’s Jonathan + Olivia boutique and you’ve got a full house. Last night, J+O owners Nic Jones and Jackie O’Brien Jones (and their cherubic son, Phoenix) hosted “This is Queen Street West,” a clothing drive in support of CAMH‘s the Suits Me Fine Boutique alongside Queen Street West mainstays Jeremy Laing, Frank Griggs, Derrick Hodgson, Jesse Girard, Richard Lambert, Brendan Canning and Alison Milne. Suits Me Fine, which provides clothing for patients of the treatment centre, received stylish donations from everyone in attendance, as each party-goer was required to bring an office-appropriate article of clothing upon entry. As Canning and Laing hit the turn tables, the hip crowd snacked on M&Ms and basked in their hipness. Much like a typical night out on Ossington Avenue, I spose, but this time it was for a cause.

It’s 11:30 p.m. on a Friday night in Toronto’s west end. A crowd of twenty- and thirtysomethings are lined up outside La Perla lounge for an event called Her, organized by Frank Griggs—fashion designer Jeremy Laing’s communications director and husband. The looming line looks as though it was pulled from a casting call for a ’90s music video. A guy at the front of the queue—wearing low-rider bell bottoms, champagne-hued fun fur and a CeCe Peniston tour ball cap—is chatting up a young woman dolled up in an apricot catsuit replete with a handbag covered in Keith Haring art pins. Anxious to get their hands stamped, the duo sway to a house remix of En Vogue’s vintage hit “Hold On” blaring from the DJ booth inside. A skinny-jeaned teen sporting a graphic T-shirt that reads “House Music Is The Future” gets out of a cab and joins the pair. “Honey, this is no novelty tee,” he says, pointing to the neon font on his chest. “This is a prophecy tee.”

According to ethnomusicologist Kai Fikentscher, that tee isn’t just a fashion statement, it’s a cultural one. The author of “You Better Work!” Underground Dance Music in New York City claims that house—a soulful branch of electronic music typically set to a 4/4 tempo—is infiltrating nightlife, fashion and film. “After over 20 years of bubbling below the belt of the status quo, house is finally starting to get the global respect and popularity it deserves,” Fikentscher says.

Known for diva-centric vocals, lush strings and syncopated bass, house saw a popularity peak in the late ’80s and early ’90s when hit makers such as Inner City, Crystal Waters and DJ Frankie Knuckles delivered it to radio from its roots in the gay nightclubs of Chicago and New York. Surviving well beyond its older, kitschier sister, disco, house did not die at the hands of grunge—it just moved further into the underground when Nirvana came along. “It has had so many reincarnations and new names,” says Fikentscher, citing nu-disco and electro. “In the past five years, a proper resurrection of [soulful] house has truly been happening.”

The resurgence isn’t just about nostalgia. A new wave of vocalists, songwriters, rappers and designers who weren’t old enough to party in the late ’80s are embracing the sophisticated boom boom. Cutting-edge MCs such as Toronto’s Isis Salam; 23-year-old New Yorker Le1f, who DJed Patrik Ervell’s spring runway show and performed at Opening Ceremony’s 10th anniversary party; and House of Ladosha (they rap about Naomi Campbell’s weave) are experimenting with the look and sound of house, and attracting bigger audiences because of it. Pop names such as Beth Ditto, whose club hit “I Wrote The Book” is a flagrant homage to Madonna’s “Vogue,” Rihanna (her new disc transparently lifts from ’90s DJ duo Masters at Work) and Scissor Sisters have pushed classic, soulful house into the mainstream.

View the Louis Vuitton Maison Toronto interior photos »
View the Louis Vuitton Maison Toronto opening party photos »

Louis Vuitton’s got a brand new bag. Or rather, a gorgeous new Maison to house all those bags. The monogrammed megabrand finally opened the doors at its new Toronto location last month, revealing a palatial space three times as big as its last at 150 Bloor Street West. We haven’t stopped ogling since. Designed by none other than leather-daddy architect Peter Marino, the shimmering two-floor glass and steel mecca houses virtually everything that Louis Vuitton is known for, including full selections of luggage, small leather goods, bags, shoes, accessories, ready-to-wear and even custom-designed fine jewellery, unique to the location (LV + TO charm bracelets?). It is also the first store in Canada to feature Louis Vuitton’s exclusive “Haute Maroquinerie” service for made to order leather goods. Sounds pretty haute to us.

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While the rest of the city was busy setting off Canada Day fireworks and lining the streets for the annual blowout Pride Parade, Toronto’s hippest were hanging in the beautifully shaded backyard belonging to gallerist Daniel Faria. Co-hosted by Faria and alongside Rui Amaral and Andrea Beechey, the backyard soiree (complete with drag show by Mozza Fierce, tunes by DJ Diego Armand and drinks served by topless The Earl’s Men) was a welcome respite from the frenzied pulse beating through the city’s wears. Instead, guests like Trinity Jackman, Jeremy Laing, Frank Griggs and Catherine Dean favoured easy breezy Ts, loose summer dresses, tropical prints and strapped flats. Check out our favourite shots from street shooter extraordinaire, Textstyles’ Stefania Yarhi.

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Lauded as the hottest art party of the year, the Power Plant’s annual Power Ball fundraiser certainly lived up to expectations last night. Complete with wall-projected animations, Kobos hanging on trees, an old fashioned swing and a pre-party hosted by the much-hyped Soho House, almost 2,000 partygoers danced into the wee hours while carving off pieces of Marc Thuet’s bison on a spit. Some of our favourite duos—The Society’s Ashleigh Dempster and Amanda Blakely, designer Philip Sparks and NOW’s Andrew Sardone, Knot PR’s Amy Burstyn-Fritz and Tatiana Read, designer Jeremy Laing and Frank Griggs, and eTalk’s Tanya Kim and CP24’s Melissa Grelo—flitted around the scene. There was a mock television talk show (which we took part in) with a dancing robot sharing hosting duties. There was a performance by Dragonette. There were ladies dressed as sailors and men dressed as women. There were, always, many types of cocktails a-flowing (shout-out to Grey Goose, who created a timely Diamond Jubilee mix at the pre-party). Surely, more highlights will come to us throughout the day, but we can’t be asked to recount them all, given how late we were up.

Last night, Toronto’s favourite wunderkind-turned-blogger-turned-photographer-turned-designer returned home for the celebration of his latest venture. Said venture? The much-talked-about limited-edition bag collection designed by Tommy Ton in collaboration with Club Monaco (also one of Toronto’s proudest exports, if we may say so). But you knew that, didn’t you? In fact, you must be on the already-at capacity waiting list for one of the two models, which will apparently sell out as soon as they hit stores. That didn’t stop the city’s finest—including our editor-in-chief Bernadette Morra, blogger Anita Clarke, Jeremy Laing and the recently eye-operated-on Frank Griggs (so you can forgive the indoor sunglasses, just this once) —from stopping by the brand’s Bloor Street flagship to take a peek. We didn’t leave with the bags, but we were lucky enough to snag mini flipbooks created at the event.

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