FASHION Magazine

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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.

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After months of buzz and a few blizzards, Calgary’s top fashion and arts non-profit organization, PARK (Promoting Artists, Redefining Kulture), threw its fourth annual PARKSHOW event to a sold-out crowd of over 350 people at the contemporary Palliser South Tower on Saturday night.

Rebecca Minkoff‘s bags are often seen swinging from the arms of Hollywood’s twenty-something set. Bijou Phillips, Rachel Bilson, Hayden Panettiere and pretty much everyone on Gossip Girl has carried one of the New York-based designer’s creations. (Samantha Jones also brought one of Minkoff’s Market Totes along to Mexico in the first Sex & the City movie.) But Minkoff’s most rabid fans are the denizen’s of web forums who show off their latest acquisitions, discuss what’s their bags and dish about the latest celeb sighting. The designer was in Toronto recently to launch her spring line at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com) and we caught up with her to talk favourite bags, motorcycle jackets and the benefits of internet fandom.

So you started out in clothing and expanded into bags. What inspired the move?

“It was unexpected; I was at a dinner with Jenna Elfman who was on the TV show Dharma & Greg. She said ‘I’m doing a movie coming up and this bag is an important part of my character’s experience. Will you design a bag for me?’ And I was like ‘Sure, I’d love to!’ I was like ‘I have no idea how I’m gonna do this right now!’ The first bag was canvas and leather and I still have it. FedEx mis-delivered so it did not get into the movie. Then the movie went straight to DVD so it didn’t matter anyways.”

Sunday is a day of relaxing and that is exactly what I did as I sat back in my seat, watching with sparkling eyes as models graced the runway at the Building Our Future Fashion Show, which featured some of the city’s most distinguished independent designers including Rebecca King, Niki Gerety and Sova Design.