FASHION Magazine

Another day, another black legging… that’s the way it seems to go in the never-ending saga of the skin-tight trend we thought had disappeared along with La Lohan’s popularity. In her LG debut yesterday, New York-based designer, Heather Lawton brought an all-black collection of you guessed it… leggings, as well as a series of crinkled tees, silk button-downs and goat hair vests. A far cry from what we imagine Lawton’s picturesque Prince Edward Island upbringing must have looked like, the designer seemed hell bent on recreating the darkness of basement bars and back alleys of her current home. Aside from several tepid takes on these downtown staples, Lawton did show a few beautifully slung bag dresses with rope and goat hair entangled throughout.

View the Heather Lawton gallery »

Last October, a breath of fresh air breezed through the grounds at Heritage Court⎯the home to “official” Toronto fashion week⎯in the form of an über hip group of young fashionites called The Fashion Collective. A sort of mélange of hype-making and style setting, PR maven Kate Mullin, stylist Dwayne Kennedy and producer Brian A. Richards brought the likes of Rita Liefhebber, Thomas, Amanda Lew Kee and Chloé Comme Parris to the official schedule. Whereas the edgy designers such as these would have previously stayed as far away from the official schedule as possible, the group bridged the gap between the established and the upstarts making the official week a hub for all. For the fall 2011 season starting on March 28^th, the Collective’s got a whole new bag of tricks up their sleeve, introducing LABEL, Heather Lawton, Sid Neigum, and diepo into the Toronto fashion week womenswear stratosphere. Here’s our sneak peek of what these hot young things have got in store: