FASHION Magazine

Still exhausted from last Thursday’s Emerging Designer Showcase, an epic evening of 15 collections, a glance at my sparse program the following evening reminded me of the even-then thin second showcase we experienced last season at Atlantic Fashion Week. With some of our hard-hitters (namely Katrina Tuttle and Deux Fm) nabbing spots in, ahem, shall I say larger fashion weeks, ol’ AFW night two, intended to show our biggest and brightest, was feeling a little sparse.

Luckily, many of our remaining players stepped up to the plate.

Halifax designer Katrina Tuttle is set to put on her second show on the Toronto Fashion Week runway on Wednesday evening. (See her Spring 2010 collection.) She talks champagne and Sarah Jessica Parker in our pre-show Q&A.

On the heels of Wednesday’s jam-packed design-fest, the second night of Atlantic Fashion Week felt noticeably thin with only five collections. Regular show-stoppers Deux fm, Turbine and Katrina Tuttle (read about her show at LG Fashion Week) weren’t on the evening’s agenda—having other projects, from solo showcases to newborns, to tend to—and I darn well missed them.

Padding the blow, however, were new faces, including jewellery designer Megan Allison, an artist-in-residence at NSCAD who knows how to make that statement accessory. Belly-button hovering medallion necklaces were as glamorous in the front as they are in the back, and single earrings—a weakness of mine, as you know—dangled in rich golds with flashes of turquoise and wood.

See a look from Megan Allison’s collection.

Not unlike fellow designer Jason Meyers, Halifax’s Katrina Tuttle designs clothes for parties, though Tuttle’s are of the garden, not nightclub, variety. And many of her spring frocks were garden variety indeed. Similar one-shouldered shifts marched out in textured white, pink satin with a tone-on-tone circle motif, a black and white paintbrush print. Better was Tuttle’s fun take on handkerchiefs. Fabric was buttoned and folded into bubble skirts gray and white, up the front of a translucent pale gray dress or into a strapless frock in three shades of aqua. (The idea was less successful creeping over the shoulders of jackets and yet more dresses.) A few standalone items of note were a strapless maxi in an oversized flower print, a bubble dress done in bright white jersey with floral burnouts and the final looks: two embellished, effusive pieces that seem to best display the kind of party Tuttle wants to attend.

See a gallery of the show after the jump.

Gallery Page and Strange (1869 Granville St., 902-422-8995, pageandstrange.com), located in Halifax’s historic Granville Mall, houses the best walls in the city. Encompassed by the sleek columns, stunning molding and sky-kissing ceilings of a bygone era, the building’s old brick walls have been slathered in a fresh, modern white that would make any artist salivate. These gallery walls, and the contemporary art that hangs from them, created the perfect setting for last Thursday’s unveiling of Katrina Tuttle’s (katrinatuttle.com) Fall 2009 designs—a collection that has painted classic ideas in a coat of modernity.

Ever run into a friend’s younger sibling, after years, and spend the whole time grinning at how much they’ve grown and who they’ve become? That was the second Atlantic Fashion Week designer showcase for me—an evening of cheek pinches and head pats, or at least the seated, acceptable equivalent: much-deserved applause.