FASHION Magazine

It takes a certain amount of guts to co-opt Diana Vreeland’s famous line, “Pink is the navy blue of India.” Holt Renfrew turned that on its ear at last night’s LG Fashion Week opener, casting magenta–their signature shade–to fill that role in Canada. Well it was, at least for the night, when the luxury department store brought nine designers from their stable of homegrown talent to the runway. It was a blockbuster ticket that included five looks each from Jeremy Laing, Lida Baday, Line, Pink Tartan, jacket specialists Smythe, glamour veteran Wayne Clark, Mikhael Kale, menswear label Wings + Horns and Montreal designer Denis Gagnon. With a few of the designers, it was a bit of an appetizer–Pink Tartan and Line show tonight and Gagnon presents on Friday–but the show also served as a crib sheet for some of our country’s brightest fashion lights (and a handy-dandy walking catalogue for Holts’ customers).

See a gallery of looks from last night’s show»

Watch a video of the Holt Renfrew runway show»

Read our full coverage of Toronto Fashion Week»

Last night, Toronto’s fashion crowd gathered for the first official party of LG Fashion Week: the Holt Renfrew Media Cocktail. The bash is always a hot ticket, and in recent seasons, Holts has offered up a mini runway show to showcase the Canadian talent they’re featuring in their World Design Lab. This season, the group was, what the company’s VP of fashion direction, Barbara Atkin, referred to as “our own group of seven.” The presentation was a chance to take a peek at looks from designers who show in other cities, as with Jeremy Laing and Denis Gagnon, or who don’t do shows at all, as is the case with Mikhael Kale, Lida Baday and Smythe. Kale’s pieces were a space-age pastiche of skins, prints and fringe, while Baday showed a trio of simple, well-crafted pieces in black and white. And we never get tired of seeing what Denis Gagnon can do with leather. Also on the ticket were a handful of looks from Greta Constantine, who showed their full collection last week, and Pink Tartan, who’s up tomorrow night.

Check out the gallery of looks after the jump.

The Textile Museum of Canada (55 Centre Ave., Toronto, 416-599-5321) is a gem of a museum tucked away on a side street near University and Dundas and if you haven’t been there, you really should remedy that tout de suite. Not only is it a trove of fabrics from all over the world, there’s also […]

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On Monday night, Holt Renfrew hosted their media/VIP cocktail party, always the kickoff to Toronto Fashion Week. The gotta-get-an-invite party has long been held in the first floor handbag section, but this season, they moved the festivities up to the new third-floor contemporary space. The other change was a mini runway presentation featuring five Canadian […]

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Rev up your air-kissers: Fashion Week officially got underway with the Holt Renfrew media cocktail party.  Upon arrival we took the escalators up to the newly-facelifted third floor–contemporary never looked so chic.  The walls have literally been brought down to reveal an au courant open-concept floor plan that highlights many of the lust-worthy labels that even those struck by this downward dog economy still covet.