FASHION Magazine

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Heels may always take top fashion honours, but sneakers are most definitely the shoes of the last century. On Thursday night, they were officially inducted into shoe history with the opening of Bata Shoe Museum’s Out of the Box: The Rise of Sneaker Culture, the first exhibit of its kind in North America. Beginning with ultimate function’s first pair made in 1873 (they were called plimsoles at the time), the exhibit features everything from the iconic— Nike Dunk Supremes—to the hyper fashionable—Pierre Hardy’s Poworama sneakers.

Matching the exhibit’s out of the box theme, the museum had Toronto-born and internationally lauded industrial designer Karim Rashid, who is known to collect a sneaker or two himself, design the exhibit. In signature monochrome (this time it was head-to-toe white) Rashid kicked off the exhibit alongside the museum’s iconic founder, Sonja Bata and FASHION’s editor in chief, Bernadette Morra. After taking in a break dancing performance from Unity Charity, the crowd, which included persistent girl about town, Jen Kirsch and recent Come Date With Me Canada bachelorette Gail McInnes, hiked up three flights of stairs to take in the exhibit. To those who hiked in heels, we salute you.

See the party photos from “This is Queen Street West” »

Already a favourite spot with the fashion set, add a worthy cause to a party at Toronto’s Jonathan + Olivia boutique and you’ve got a full house. Last night, J+O owners Nic Jones and Jackie O’Brien Jones (and their cherubic son, Phoenix) hosted “This is Queen Street West,” a clothing drive in support of CAMH‘s the Suits Me Fine Boutique alongside Queen Street West mainstays Jeremy Laing, Frank Griggs, Derrick Hodgson, Jesse Girard, Richard Lambert, Brendan Canning and Alison Milne. Suits Me Fine, which provides clothing for patients of the treatment centre, received stylish donations from everyone in attendance, as each party-goer was required to bring an office-appropriate article of clothing upon entry. As Canning and Laing hit the turn tables, the hip crowd snacked on M&Ms and basked in their hipness. Much like a typical night out on Ossington Avenue, I spose, but this time it was for a cause.

See the AGO Massive Party photos »

Last night’s Massive Party at the Art Gallery of Ontario was just that. Massive. The ninth annual fundraiser sprawled across much the AGO’s Frank Gehry-fied space with gold glitter, gold jewels, gold-inspired exhibits and even gold body paint on scantily clad models. The theme for the night, if you haven’t guessed by now, was indeed luxury’s finest metal: gold. Inspiring many of the night’s 1,800 attendees to dress their blingiest, gold may as well have been a metaphor for “top tier,” with many of Toronto’s top artists—Maylee Todd, Thrush Holmes and Tibi Tibi Neuspiel to name just a few—participating with one-off installations and performances for the night. Even the night’s curator, multidisciplinary artist Justin Broadbent created exclusive pieces for the event, our favourite being a graffitied “Poor Hipster” painting bookended with gold streamers.

See the Tiffany Blue Book gala photos »

Gwyneth Paltrow, Carey Mulligan, Kate Hudson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michelle Williams and Jessica Biel. The guest list for last night’s Tiffany Blue Book gala read like an Oscar red carpet.

But it was all about aqua, with New York’s Rockefeller Center bathed in pale blue light and a 4-storey high blue box erected over the ice rink. Inside was a ’20s-style supper club with mounds of lobster and beef tenderloin, free flowing champagne, plumed aerialists hovering like exotic birds and Smash’s Megan Hilty belting out show tunes. The elegant excess reflected Tiffany’s starring role in the soon-to-be released The Great Gatsby, with the $200,000 diamond headband worn by Mulligan in the film on display alongside pieces from Tiffany’s 2013 Blue Book collection which goes on sale today.

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.

See photos from the Holt Renfrew Rag & Bone party »

Toronto is so desperate for springtime, that not even last night’s biblical style storm wouldn’t stop its style inclined inhabitants from flocking to Holt Renfrew for a party in honour of Rag & Bone’s neon-heavy spring collection. Packed to the racks of the department store’s third floor, partygoers—including designers Marcus Wainwright and David Neville, who made it in the nick of time after hours of flight delays—seemed especially eager to throw down to the DJ tunes and get crafty with the makeshift graffiti board that had been installed on a nearby wall.

And now for the fashion: Spring’s graphic black and white trend was embraced by many partygoers, most notably by stylist Mariko Lauren who channeled Wednesday Adams in a peter pan collar dress and wide brimmed hat and the always-fabulous Kealan Anne Sullivan, who artfully paired a vintage policeman’s hat with a black velvet cape, a white turtleneck sweater and beat up jeans. Socialite Stacey Kimmel braved gravity in a skin-baring halter black dress with selectively geometric fabric slashes. And at the other end of the spectrum, designer/photographer Ashley Rowe went for the kaleidoscopic effect with her lime green active suit suit, turquoise-dyed hair and gal pal stylist Cara Joy Purkis who wore head-to-toe red.

See all the party photos from Parkshow 2013 in Calgary »

Welcome aboard! It’s a new year for PARK, Calgary’s non-profit fashion and arts organization, and that means a new line-up of outstanding events and fresh emerging talent. On March 23, a cool crowd of more than 350 guests checked in at the Aerospace Museum of Calgary for PARKSHOW 13, presented by Hyatt Auto Gallery Mercedes-Benz.

Check out the photos from the Joe Fresh after-party »

Given the well-heeled ladies and gents that show up for a Joe Fresh fashion show, you’d never believe the label’s wears run as affordably as they do. Though as any Loblaws shopper in Canada knows, they do. After last night’s punky all-black Fall 2013 outing, showgoers were looking to kick off their heels (proverbially speaking) with signature orange cocktails, mini tacos and pulsing DJ beats at the private watering hole, Storys.

Fresh off the Fresh runway, models Heather Marks, Meaghan Collison and a group of studly males in tight sweaters flooded the room with just enough impossible beauty to make the ogling worth it. Creative director Joe Mimran and wife Kimberley Newport-Mimran showed up in coordinated head-to-toe black suiting, adding their own luxe touch to the non-colour of the night. As the two cozied up to Loblaws frontman Galen Weston, nightclub impresario Charles Khabouth and our favourite dandy, Bruce C. Bailey, an informal dance party broke out with queen of the moves, Andrea Bolley, at the forefront. Just an average rip roaring night in Toronto as of late, it seems.

See all the Holt Renfrew party pictures »

Not even a micro-blizzard can stop Toronto from celebrating the start of World MasterCard Fashion Week in style. Open-toed shoes and floor-grazing hemlines were spotted on many of the attendees at Holt Renfrew’s cocktail kickoff party, with barely a salt stain or goose-bump in sight.

The party, which started after the last of Monday’s shows, transplanted the front row set—that is, a mix of editors, designers, photographers and buyers—onto the third floor of Holt Renfrew. Ambient music (courtesy a Bellosound DJ in a white Jeremy Laing dress) mixed well with on-brand magenta lighting, making for quite the party den far away from the tents at David Pecaut square. And magenta wasn’t just everywhere thanks to the lighting: from Ashley Rowe’s dip-dyed hair and bright caftan to Lisa Tant’s magenta bolero jacket to a pocket square (that may have actually been a pair of panties, according to one onlooker) worn by a crafty male guest, the evening was filled with shades of pink, purple and red.

See all the party pictures from the Canadian Stage Theatre Ball! »

Based on an informal poll of FASHION’s online department, an event that allows you multiple chances to talk with Jason Priestley is the best event of all. Such was the case at last week’s Canadian Stage Theatre Ball, which celebrated 25 years of the company—a company that just happens to include Priestley in its forthcoming season. The gala event was more cabaret than fundraiser, with Canadian Stage performers singing hits from classic productions as partygoers found their seats for dinner. As an oversized birthday cake was wheeled on stage, Hair’s “Let the Sunshine In” echoed throughout The Carlu. (Though to the dismay of this attendee, no naked hippies jumped out.) “Every time they say CanStage we have to drink!” shouted one guest at the Corus Entertainment table during host Seamus O’Regan’s opening remarks of the evening—and the energy stayed just as palpable until the last guests shuffled off the well-used dance floor at the end of the night.

See the photos from Patti Smith at the AGO »

Patti Smith is taking Toronto by storm. Body and soul, too. With a solid-week of press conferences, appearances and sold-out shows in support of her exhibit “Camera Solo” at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the once reluctant high priestess of punk has morphed into a veritable art shaman, worthy of the same worship she attaches to the figures she features in “Camera Solo” through photographs and objects of their belongings, abodes and resting places.

Last night, the 66 year-old singer took to the makeshift stage in the AGO’s Frank Gehry-fied centre court for the first of two back-to-back sold-out performances as part of the museum’s monthly 1^st Thursdays art party program. Along with her daughter, Jesse Paris Smith on piano and guitarist Tony Shanahan, she lit the night with renditions of songs like “Ghost Song,” “Pissing in a River” and “Because the Night” as well reading excerpts from her book Just Kids. The excerpts, which seemed to tie in with the canonizing theme of the exhibit, included tales of Allen Ginsberg and a poem for Robert Mapplethorpe.” He didn’t live to read it, so I’ll read it to you,” she said.

See the photos from RAFF’s opening night »

As it’s getting to be in Toronto, there are so many festivals, exhibits, parties and things to see, that you can’t very well see ‘em all. And while we once would have lamented over the lack of such a problem, we’ve got it now for better or for worse. In order for a working art mind to grow, you have to work hard not to let any potentially mind-opening experiences fall through the cracks, and that’s why despite the weather, I dragged myself out into the cold on Wednesday night for the opening of the Real Artists Film Festival (RAFF) held at the TIFF Lightbox. In its 10^th year, RAFF brings some of the best art-related documentaries to the city, this year launching with an excerpted version of Megumi Sasaki’s Herb & Dorothy 50×50, the follow-up to the 2008 original, Herb & Dorothy. The original tells the story of Herbert and Dorothy Vogel, the postman and librarian also known as the “proletarian art collectors,” who amassed a collection of almost 5,000 works of contemporary art in their one bedroom Manhattan apartment. Collecting only what they liked, could carry home on the subway and could afford (while living solely on Dorothy’s income and using Herb’s for art), the Vogels amassed one of the biggest collection of post-1960s minimal and conceptual art in the world which includes such lauded artists as Sol LeWitt, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, John Chamberlain, Chuck Close, Mark Kostabi and Charles Clough.