FASHION Magazine

See all the photos from the Mercedes-Benz Start Up runway » In the end, it was the origami that won out on the opening night of World Mastercard Fashion Week. The six finalists in last night’s Mercedes Benz Start-Up Competition were the strongest group yet in the 3-year-old cross-Canada talent search. Sisters Chloe and Parris […]

The post Mercedes-Benz Start Up’s Spring 2015 winner: See the looks from Sid Neigum, Beaufille and more appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Well, this is certainly a game-changer: Yves Saint Laurent has just announced that under the creative direction of Hedi Slimane, the fashion house will be entering a new era, complete with a new moniker.

In the next few months, the legendary French fashion house will undergo its transformation into Saint Laurent Paris, a nod to “Saint Laurent Rive Gauche,” the name YSL’s first-ever ready-to-wear collection was produced under in 1966. The rebranding will first hit sales floors as the S/S 2013 women’s collection later this year.

A YSL rep told WWD that Slimane wanted to recapture the original “impulses” that led Saint Laurent himself to make his foray into the RTW world: youth, freedom and modernity. The rebranding’s aim is to bring the house back to its “truth, purity and essence.”

Obviously, you can’t make a big change like this without eliciting some strong responses. Saint Laurent died relatively recently (in 2008), and understandably, a lot of people are still very attached to the image of the man behind the label. Taking the eponymous brand’s name in a new direction has been met with a certain degree (i.e. a lot) of outrage so far. The Twitterverse in particular was blazing with anger, with big-ticket fashion players from Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week to Independent Fashion Bloggers tweeting their distaste.

“Yves Saint Laurent is changing their name… Not gonna lie.. I’m a little upset,” MBFW tweeted.

“Why anyone would want to name change the classic Yves Saint Laurent is beyond us […],” IFB opined.

We’re a bit torn on this one: calling the “YSL” moniker iconic is almost an understatement, and anyone with the slightest inclination to fashion is probably a bit attached to the fashion house’s name and logo (which, thankfully, Slimane isn’t changing). Then again, maybe Slimane is right — maybe it is time to breathe some new life into a brand that’s long been shadowed by its founder’s legacy.

What do you think: can you get behind SLP or will you always be a YSL type?

View the winning collection »

Edmonton had never seen anything like it before. Over the course of two short days, fashion industry experts from New York and Toronto bulldozed into a city of over a million people and changed its fashion beat.

The Mercedes-Benz Start Up program, now in its second year, has again begun its search for the next big Canadian designer, and last night, asked five of the top designers (after a grueling day of interviews with the top 10), to show their collections at the semi-final runway show at David Morris Fine Cars, an Edmonton Mercedes-Benz dealership.

As part of their 2012 Icons of Style campaign, Mercedes-Benz has re-imagined Dorothy’s windswept journey to Oz. Premiering on Nowness today, the Alex Prager–directed short has Lara Stone in the role of the luckiest girl in the world, the backdrop of the moody Californian desert in place of good old Kansas, and the Benz SL […]

The post Watch Lara Stone star in Mercedes-Benz’s new Oz-inspired film. Plus, we’ve got the exclusive behind-the-scenes photos! appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

View the photo gallery »

As we reported back in early June, Mercedes-Benz and IMG have introduced Start Up, their internationally lauded joint competition and mentorship program for up-and-coming designers to Canada. Well, here we go!

Early Wednesday, the first Start Up step was put into place, as I—along with a slew of notables including designer Marie Saint Pierre and FDCC president Robin Kay—judged the Montreal semi-final applicants. As a fan and avid supporter of Canadian fashion, I was thrilled to be a guest judge. Especially since FASHION Magazine is the official magazine sponsor!

Last night, industry folks were treated to an old fashioned game of suspense. Ushered into a location much further east than most knew existed⎯the sleek Mercedes-Benz dealership that straddles the DVP⎯we gathered to hear an announcement about an upcoming project. Most guessed that it would be fashion week related… a new sponsorship deal? A new location, perhaps? What was announced instead, was something so much more exciting: the launch of Mercedes-Benz Start Up. Produced alongside IMG, LG Fashion Week Beauty by L’Oréal Paris and the FDCC, Start Up is a new initiative to help foster new and upcoming designers on a national scale. Promising to nurture young businesses rather than a simply a competition based on creativity, Start Up is as its title suggests… a magnified launch pad for Canadian talent.

So, how exactly will it work? We break Start Up down: