FASHION Magazine

An official Friends cookbook is on the way, the 2020 Hot Docs Festival is now online, the Luminato Festival announced this year's virtual lineup, and more.

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What a time to be in Toronto. We’ve got Drake, bangin’ sports teams, and now “where they shot Robocop” has been transformed into an incredibly cool new cultural hub. The Hearn (as it’s officially known) is a once deserted generating station now home to Luminato Festival, the city’s annual all encompassing arts festival (running through […]

The post Inside Luminato 2016’s opening night party appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

When a festival is self-described as being “for people open to having art change their outlook on the world,” you can bet its opening night will be something along the lines of spectacular. And at Luminato Festival’s fundraising gala last night in Toronto, it was. For the second year in a row, the festival chose […]

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See the photos from Luminato 2014 Opening Gala »

A festival is never complete without an impressive party to kick it off, and last night’s Luminato art festival opening party was nothing but. Toronto’s elite, bloggers and artsy attendees joined co-chairs Rupert Duchesne, Joseph Mimran and Kimberley Newport-Mimran to mark the launch of the 10-day art festival with creative director Jörn Weisbrodt and hubby Rufus Wainwright at the helm of the festivities. Besides drawing Canadian notables like Toronto mayoral candidate Olivia Chow and celebrated stage director Atom Egoyan, Isabella Rossellini was there to promote her upcoming on-stage debut, Green Porno. In tune with the night’s theme, Berlin Underground, the opening party was held in the outskirts of downtown Toronto (Toronto Port Lands to be exact) at the Hearn Generating Station where the abandoned industrial space was transformed into a one-of-a-kind venue for a 450-deep dinner and party. Complete with leather-clad dancers/artists lounging in corners, 1930s German propaganda on projected screens and neon lights bouncing off the exposed industrial interior, the party could not have taken place in a more suitable location. Well-dressed guests (ranging from black-tie attire to jumpsuits and much-coveted crop tops) had the chance to not only get their makeup retouched by on-site YSL makeup artists in super glam vanity stations. From a hopping DJ and buzzy dance floor to a flipbook station and 3D printers, it’s safe to say that last night was nothing short of extraordinary.

Days after Isabella Rossellini turned 40, she was asked to leave one of the loves of her life. Not a husband or boyfriend—she ended relationships with Martin Scorsese and David Lynch long before celebrating
the big 40. It wasn’t acting, either, as Rossellini racked up stacks of film credits (from noirs such as Blue Velvet to comedies such as Death Becomes Her) before writing, producing and starring in her popular series of short films on animal sexuality, Green Porno. Rossellini, the daughter of Ingrid Bergman and filmmaker Roberto Rossellini, was pushed to abandon her place in the modelling world. And, as she conveyed in her 1997 autobiography, Some of Me, when she was 43 an executive at Lancôme decided that after serving 14 years as the face of the brand, it was time for a younger woman to take over. Rossellini has maintained that she was urged to graciously retire to save herself from embarrassment. Looking back at her track record (she’s appeared on 28 Vogue covers), she decided she would be foolish to step down from such a lucrative career. And at the age of 61, she continues to make modelling a part of her life, recently starring in a Bulgari campaign.

As for acting, Rossellini kept Hollywood at bay to devote her time to her Green Porno project. Having written and starred in more than 45 films on the subject of mating in the wild kingdom (she dresses up as a handful of creatures to demonstrate their sexual encounters), Rossellini, who is currently doing a master’s degree in conservation and ethology, has seen her venture blow up online as well as offline, as millions of viewers have clicked on her educational spots. The project became so popular that Rossellini adapted the films into a one-woman stage show which will have its Canadian debut in Toronto on June 6 as part of the Luminato Festival.

See Luminato opening party photos »

On Friday night, Toronto’s arts elite flooded the sprawling canopied lobby of Brookfield Place for the opening of the Luminato arts festival. The event was activity-stacked, with Yves Saint Laurent handing out engraved Touche Eclat pens and branded cigars and a gigantic claw arcade machine in the centre of the room. The machine, entitled Stockpile, is actually one big performance art piece, with the part of the claw being acted out by nine different artists and the curious items in the cage being donated by the community. Naturally.

Fresh off the debut performance of The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic, Marina Abramović and Willem Dafoe joined in on the festivities alongside Luminato creative director Jörn Weisbrodt and husband Rufus Wainwright, who wore a custom made Jean-Charles de Castelbajac cloud-print suit. Elsewhere, Knot PR’s Amy Burtsyn-Fritz was making her own festive statement in a shimmering 3.1 Phillip Lim cocktail dress alongside freshly minted husband, Graham Smith.

See the red carpet looks up close »

Ukrainian Canadian supermodel Daria Werbowy made an appearance in her hometown at last night’s North American premiere of Lancôme’s Rôses By…20 Artists for a Rose at Toronto’s Frist Canadian Place. Featuring twenty well-known photographers from all over the world (ahem, Patrick Demarchelier), the exhibition celebrates Lancôme’s rose emblem as part of the Luminato arts festival. Wearing an all-white Céline pantsuit, Werbowy looked every bit the modern dandy. The Lancôme spokesperson paired her white attire with white pointed-toe heels and simple gold necklaces. Showing off her model features, the supermodel kept her face natural and styled her hair in a surfer-approved high braid.

See Big Bang Bash Viktor & Rolf Dolls Luminato photos »

Last Saturday night, the arty A-list gathered to celebrate the opening of the Viktor & Rolf Dolls exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. As the pre-emptive kick-off to the Luminato arts festival, which officially begins today, patrons, planners and performers came out en masse including the formidable foreign trio of Marina Abramović, Willem Dafoe and creative director Jörn Weisbrodt. To match the quirky aesthetic of the night’s satellite guests of honour (the designers were unable to repeat their May visit to Toronto), the ROM’s crystal lobby was tricked out with curiously interactive decorations like a sky-high mannequin whose dress gave out jewellery when guests placed their hands inside, a conveyor belt of treats and a literal piano bar which thrilled with its makeshift Prohibition vibe. Everything about the event seemed as if part of a surreal dream, which culminated in the fabulously fringed navy coat belonging to a one Suzanne Boyd catching on fire. With a few ceremonious pats, the fire was extinguished, leaving the glitzy gossipers with something especially titillating to talk about.

Few can claim to embody the term “masterclass” the way Marina Abramović can. The Serbian-born, New York-based performance artist has consistently risked her physical and mental health in order to examine the concept of human limitation. In 1974, for a piece called Rhythm 5, Abramović set fire to a large petroleum-soaked pentacle and lay expressionless in the centre of the star as the flames went up (she fainted from a lack of oxygen). Other extreme works—some of which are covered in 2012’s acclaimed documentary on her life, Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present—had Abramović dripping candle wax on her bare skin, masturbating in public, cleaning human skulls and offering her naked body to strangers, who were encouraged to dress and undress her. One of her most time-consuming pieces—a 1988 performance titled The Lovers—had Abramović walk the east side of the Great Wall of China alone. The trip, which measured more than 2,000 kilometres, was planned alongside a parallel expedition taken by her lover and partner, Ulay, who trekked up the wall’s west side so the two could meet in the middle. When the pair reunited—three months after their respective journeys began—Abramović chose the moment to tell him she was putting an end to their professional and personal relationship.

See the photographs from the exhibits »

Femininity, freshness, passion… These are all words that cosmetics giant Lancôme uses to describe the rose, the ever-famous flower that has served as the company’s emblem throughout its almost 80 years of existence. This June, in celebration of their trademark blossom, Lancôme is hosting not one, but two simultaneous photography exhibits at different locations during Toronto’s Luminato festival.

Firstly, the exhibit Rôses By… 20 Artists for a Rose will be presented as a North American premiere during the Luminato festival at Toronto’s First Canadian Place. From Nick Knight to Patrick Demarchelier, Lancôme has given the green light to twenty famed international photographers to create their own personal interpretations, in colour or black and white, of the timeless rose emblem. Photographer Mark Segal chose an innocent white rose wrapped in a wreath of thorns for his interpretation, while Dusan Reljin portrayed a rose exploding out of a rich pink and orange colour palette. Of the final twenty works some are realistic, some are symbolic but all are not-to-be missed.

See The Room’s Viktor & Rolf party photos »

Viktor & Rolf’s love affair with Toronto began last night with a fittingly springy fête at Toronto’s Hudson’s Bay Queen Street flagship. In town to celebrate their recent collections as well as to do press spots for their upcoming Dolls retrospective exhibit with Luminato this summer, designers Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren sported matching embroidered jeans (Horsting’s featured sunglasses while Snoeren’s featured moustaches) and matching thick rimmed frames, making them the ideal models for Toronto’s new eyewear-specific blog, The Spectacled.

In keeping with the Dutch duo’s eccentricities, The Room was transformed with newly papered walls featuring the Fall 2013 runway room’s eerie black and white floral print, a string quartet playing instrumental takes on pop music and strapping waiters, who passed many a prettily-decorated Perrier-Jouët champagne flute while wearing V&R-esque (and maybe even a little Denis Gagnon) glasses.

After a crazy week of cover shoots, our seasonal trend presentation and some hot, hot weather, everyone here at FASHION is ready to unwind. This weekend we’re updating our iPods for summer road trips, bidding adieu to our Girls, keeping an eye out for an Avril-style wardrobe malfunction at the Chum City Building and paying homage to our dads.