FASHION Magazine

I tell anyone who will listen to me that the week of Winter Solstice is the most stressful and hectic week of the year. There’s the running around trying to get presents, the navigating of various family drama, meals to plan, cookies to bake and work projects that need to be completed before the holiday […]

The post How To Survive Winter Solstice, The Darkest Day of the Year appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

  Overplucked eyebrows, bad perms and hair that has yet to see the heat of a flat iron. You name a questionable beauty look and chances are one of our editors has lived it. So in the spirit of going back-to-school, some of our editors combed through high school yearbooks, family photo albums and Facebook to see […]

The post Gag Me with a Spoon! Our Editors Reveal Their High School Beauty Looks appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Recently I went to an open house that was a time capsule in mid-century interior design. The owner, a former interior designer, had painstakingly maintained her home in all its Mad Men-glory. The star item in this retro-treasure trove was a custom-built bedroom vanity table. Remember? Those mirrored desks that women would sit at to […]

The post The up-and-coming interior designers you need to know about appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

A buzzy, attractive crowd turned out in their finest to celebrate the TIFF premiere of Born to be Blue at an after-party hosted by Men’s FASHION at The Citizen on King Street West. This new cinematic take on the late, legendary—though tragic—jazz trumpeter Chet Baker stars Ethan Hawke (Boyhood) as Baker and Carmen Ejogo (Selma), […]

The post 31 shots from the Men’s FASHION Born to be Blue TIFF party, featuring the always dreamy Ethan Hawke appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

What’s in your bag, Jacquelyn Francis? »

In the magazine world, they say it takes a village to send any given issue to print. Here at FASHION, it takes Jacquelyn Francis. Our too-cool executive editor holds the reins on production, making sure that everyone’s dotted their Is and crossed their Ts with fashionable flavour to boot. In this edition of “What’s in your bag?”, she gives us a bit of insight into what keeps her in tip top mental shape on a day to day basis. First clue: Prada.

See what our editors wore to prom »

Oh, prom. That all-important day in many a young lady’s life that comes and goes with many awkward photos to document. We all aspire to be gazelles, but most of end up looking all too earthly too forget. Ill-placed bows, unflattering chiffon cuts, forehead framing ringlets… y’all know what we’re talking about. Prom.

Since we’re big into making prom as awesomely fashionable as possible for our youngest readers, we decided to throw our own prom looks into the ring as both cautionary tales and endearing looks back as what we looked like back on our respective big nights out.

Take a peek at what some of FASHION’s editors looked like on prom night!

If there’s one thing that can be said about One Million Moms, an anti-gay (or “pro-family”) group, it’s that they’re anything but appeasable. In fact, they’re going for third time lucky by taking another swing at JC Penney, a retailer that has very openly supported the LGBT community by prominently featuring them in ad campaigns.

The most recent reason for OMM’s wrath is a Father’s Day campaign the retailer ran, which featured two adorable children playing with not one, but two of their dads. OMM’s complaints about the dads are in the same strain as their attack on the retailer’s Mother’s Day campaign, which featured a lesbian couple.

Copper Smith and Todd Koch, the Texas-based dads featured in the recently released ad, took the high road, with Koch telling WFAA-TV, “I think it just shows that people don’t really think everything quite through…they make rush judgments on certain things without really understanding the full picture.”

The anti-gay Facebook group first bashed JC Penney after the retailer announced they’d be featuring Ellen DeGeneres as its new spokesperson. We don’t know how anyone could have a problem with DeGeneres (the animal welfare support, the dancing, the generosity… she’s beyond lovable!), but OMM did.

“Funny that JC Penney thinks hiring an open homosexual spokesperson will help their business when most of their customers are traditional families,” the group wrote on its Facebook website, which has since been taken down. “DeGeneres is not a true representation of the type of families that shop at their store. The majority of JC Penney shoppers will be offended and choose to no longer shop there.”

Aside from OMM’s fixation on JC Penney, they also threatened to boycott Toys ‘R’ Us after the toy giant sold an Archie comic that featured a gay wedding. (Kudos to Archie CEO Jon Goldwater for this amazing response: “Everything we do is built around love. Love, inclusion, friendship and family. This issue is an extension of that.”)

There’s actually an interesting twist to the whole story: it seems that despite their best efforts, One Million Moms (which is actually more like 220,000 strong) has actually been playing right into JC Penney’s hands. The retailer’s numbers have significantly gone up following the initial controversy over DeGeneres, and have steadily risen despite the OMM backlash.

What do you think: is OMM simply exercising their right to expression or are they crossing into hateful territory?

Forget sports! It seems the London 2012 Olympics will be an international battleground of the sartorial sort after Prada announced today it would be designing the Italian sailing team’s uniforms. The all-blue, slim-fitting uniforms will feature prominent Prada logos on the sleeves.

The news is merely another drop in the ocean of Olympic haute wears. The USA once again hired Ralph Lauren to design its 2012 collection. This year the designer took a decidedly traditional turn with abundant whites and preppy polos (though with some unforgivable popped collars). Stella McCartney’s hotly debated collection for the UK has been receiving some serious media attention including complaints that it’s “too blue” and “won’t look good on out of shape soccer fans.” And then there’s Giorgio Armani, whose sportswear diffusion line, Emporio Armani EA7, promises to inspire its athletes in its latest video.

All things aside, this is all starting to sound a lot like Paris Fashion Week. But with the Olympics’ incredible viewership (it’s estimated to be around 4 billion people) and its serious commercial potential, it’s no wonder these designers want to put their name on a tracksuit.

So where does Canada fit into all of this? The Hudson’s Bay Company has created patched denim jackets (Olympic Canadian Tuxedo anyone?) and a wide variety of sweaters, tees and jackets. It’s a casual collection to be sure, but a definite commercial hit.

Who will reign supreme on the catwalk in the opening ceremonies? Only time will tell. But for now, we just hope this move towards designer uniforms means we’ll never have to see another one of those backwards Poorboy caps again.