FASHION Magazine

See the photo shoot » Live from Toronto, it’s World MasterCard Fashion Week! The Spring 2015 shows take to the stage tonight, and in celebration, we present a special project. Beginning today, we’ll be featuring exclusive photo shoots done in collaboration with Toronto-based creative group The Collections. The photo shoots will feature the best in […]

The post Oh Canada! We celebrate local talent with a week of exclusive photo shoots appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

See the entire Fall fashion 2014 trend report »

From the food aisles to a galaxy far, far away, Fall 2014’s fashion narrative is just as varied as the many women who’ll likely fall for its manifold charms.

Call it the Lorde effect (or blame it fashion’s ever-growing obsession with Game of Thrones), but designers across all four major fashion cities seemed to fall under the dark spell of moody heroines. At Dolce & Gabbana, dresses were made to scrape that forest floor. At Valentino, capes shrouded the wicked and at Rodarte and Preen, Star Wars prints were made for the modern day Princess Leia.

View by trend: DARK ROMANCE | SWEATER DRESSING | STATEMENT OUTERWEAR | RED, ORANGE & PINK | OPTIC PRINTS | FUR | MIDI SKIRT | UTILITY | SURFACE DETAIL | ACCESSORIES

And while normcore may have mounted last season’s defence to street style’s increasing zaniness, Fall fashion 2014 is rife with ways to make statements. Flashbulbs will no doubt capture this season’s array of larger than life outerwear, from the utilitarian parkas on Alexander Wang’s robotic runway to Burberry’s painterly blanket coats. Meanwhile, fur was back with a brightly hued vengeance, ombréd at both Tom Ford and Marc Jacobs, and in Crayola checks at Altuzarra. At Lanvin and Marni, fur was layered in wrap form over everything from short suits to sweatshirts.

This season’s accessories are especially light-hearted, with everything from a McDonalds Happy Meal to a carton of milk inspiring fall fashion 2014’s bags at Moschino and Chanel respectively. There were fur muffs at Tory Burch, crystal-incrusted snoods at Alexander McQueen and knee-highs á la Vivian Ward at Versace and sneakers once again staking their claim at Chanel.

If there ever were a time to pick your poison, it would be now.

We can credit the genius of Phoebe Philo for bringing back the Birkenstock out of grandpa’s closet and onto our must-have shopping lists for spring. Céline’s fuzzy, fur-lined sandal kicked off the third coming of the comfort shoe legend last year. After a year in the spotlight, Birkenstocks have returned for a second year with […]

The post Are Birkenstocks cool? How they made it from slacker to staple for the second spring in a row appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

See the top Fall 2014 trend slideshow »

Your first time at any international fashion week will teach you a valuable lesson: You need a fur. And not just any Margot Tenenbaum style granny hand-me-down. A fur so intricately patterned, multi-layered and artificially coloured, that it has to be designer. Given its place at the apex of the top Fall 2014 trends, you’d think recessionary times were long gone—it’s virtually everywhere, from a hyper colour mink at Altuzarra to a fluffy red dress at Prada. Wear it with caution or as Dior prescribes, dangle it over your arm like it’s no big d. Let the fur fly, scruples or otherwise.

Jump to: FUR | SWEATER DRESSING | RED, PINK & ORANGE | STATEMENT OUTERWEAR | EMBELLISHMENT | OPTIC PRINTS | NOVELTY BAGS | DARK ROMANCE | ART | POINTY TOE HEELS

See the biggest Spring 2014 fashion trends »
See all our fashion month coverage »

With the end of fashion week in Toronto marking the close of Spring 2014 show season, it’s time we looked back at all the trends that emerged. As much as the runway sets the pace for what’s to come for the top Spring 2014 trends, the streets play a major role as show-going trendsetters give us the relatable breakdown of how to wear what’s hot next season. Prints take two spots on our top Spring 2014 trends list through those with a painterly quality and those influenced by international cultures. At Hérmes, Rousseau-inspired water lily florals were printed on luxurious fabrics while at Diane Von Furstenberg, dresses and skirts depicting an African wilderness roared. As for fashionable time travel, prepare to keep reminiscing about the youthful 1990s, which haven’t ceased to get reincarnated season after season. Designers like Rodarte, Balmain and Jason Wu have reinvented the decade’s essentials yet again. To help with your daydreaming of long sunny spring days we’ve compiled the ultimate gallery of top Spring 2014 trends as dictated by the runways and our favourite street style stars in New York, London, Milan, Paris and Toronto! Feel free to let this be your guide to budgeting and creating closet space for next season’s must have pieces.

View by trend: 1. 1990s | 2. Art-Inspired | 3. Athletic | 4. Blue | 5. Crop Tops | 6. Embellishment | 7. Metallic | 8. Pleats | 9. Sheer | 10. Worldly

See our favourite Spring 2014 shoes »

With Paris Fashion Week ending our month long preview of all things Spring 2014, it’s time we gushed over the shoes that accompanied all that we are dying to wear in the coming season.

Femininity reigned supreme on the runway through Balenciaga, Dior and Roland Mouret’s take on the stiletto. Dior’s complexly inter woven straps would make any shoe addict salivate. At Balmain, our impending full coverage boots will shed a few layers and appear as heeled boots with varying dotted sheer and embellished cage finishes. While we saw Saint Laurent’s fall styles embrace the studded and spiked appeal of punk’s aesthetic, Junya Watanabe clung onto the trend for his Spring 2014 shoes with a menacing ankle boot. Enviable green snakeskin heels and platform chunky heels were seen at Gucci and Michael Kors respectively. Spring is incomplete without feather embellished flats as seen at Rochas.

See our all-black makeup picks! »

It is always darkest before the dawn, so the proverb goes. By our calculations, the sun should be rising on planet fashion any day now: the Fall 2012 runways plunged us into a cavernous black hole of clothes worthy of Louise Brooks and Siouxsie Sioux, and haunting beauty looks that referenced Tim Burton’s films. That mood also infected the making of Lady Gaga’s fragrance, Fame. “I like black, especially what it has to do with fame, because it is a veil,” she says, tapping her knife-like ebony talons on the table at a hotel in New York. “It’s sort of like saying, ‘I don’t want you to see something.’” The R&D department struggled to create the noir-hued perfume that turns clear once airborne—an industry first. (Rumour has it one staff member was inspired when he spotted a bottle of black vodka behind the bar while out for a drink.) The request for an ominously coloured juice was music to the ears of its perfumer, Richard Herpin. It meant he didn’t have to exclude ingredients that can be visually unappealing when mixed together. “I could use anything I wanted,” he says. As fashion has taught us, black hides a multitude of sins.

Fashion Television (RIP) was ahead of its time in several ways, and here is one of them: In 1985, when executive producer Jay Levine launched the program, he imagined it might become a channel for short narrative videos about clothing. Fashion films, now so inescapable a phenomenon, were then just a thought without a name: if music videos could revolutionize the way we consume pop, couldn’t a little cinematography do the same for clothing? The ’70s had seen then-living legends Guy Bourdin and Richard Avedon experiment with the moving image, and as film-recording cameras became less expensive, it seemed likely they’d land in the hands of younger, emerging lensmen. As MTV was to music videos, so might Fashion Television be to this new mode of image-making.

View our top 5 picks »

The shop: I’ve written about London, UK’s LN-CC before, and I’ll write about them again, because there’s hardly a store like it. Set deep in Dalston in a cubist lair-like space, all raw wood and amber lighting and the smell of incense and cloth, it feels like a more organic future. And because they launched online concurrently, their e-shop is just as far out in front of the pack: their seasonal editorial shoots are so exquisitely on-point, they’ve landed on Style.com. If you’re not on the store’s mailing list, sign up now—you get as much sartorial inspiration as temptation, promise.

The goods: LN-CC, which does nearly three quarters of its business online, sells the best new London designers (J.W. Anderson before you knew who J.W. Anderson was), the most adventurous European labels (Givenchy, Ann Demeulemeester, Commes) and a host of international finds (like high-tech knitwear by Philadelphia’s Lauren Manoogian, or earrings by Canada’s own Jaime Sin). It’s easy to shop for two, too: the men’s section is (a rarity) as good as the women’s, with owner-buyer John Skelton hewing close to his own eclectic—but functional—taste. Just don’t fall for a $400 leather boot strap, because that’s why the Eurozone is collapsing.

None of this so-called curation comes cheap, as you can see, so I suggest keeping a clear head (when are you going to wear a dress that, judging from its price, is made entirely from Edie Sedgwick’s lost sequins and a unicorn’s hair?) and one tab open to their sale page. I am waiting, waiting, waiting for my recurring dream shoes, the derby wood platforms by shoechitect ETS Callatay, to land there. If only there were a god…

Princess Diary
By Dennis Hensley

Lily Collins embarks on a thoroughly modern fairy tale with her first starring role,
as a sword-fighting, prince-saving Snow White.

When Lily Collins arrived for her first costume fitting as Snow White on the Montreal set of Mirror Mirror, she assumed the most fabulous getups would go to her co-star Julia Roberts, who plays the evil queen. “I saw all these dramatic, colourful, amazing outfits and I thought, ‘Wow, Julia’s so lucky,’” says the 23-year-old British-born actress who’s best known for playing Sandra Bullock’s daughter in The Blind Side. “And then they started bringing them in, and I said, ‘Is this for me?’ The first outfit took 25 minutes to get into, and when I looked in the mirror I got teary-eyed.” Then there were the elaborate sets; she describes a giant indoor forest and 40 tons of salt for snow. “I was sprinting through this huge room of trees, in my ball gown, sword-fighting, going up cliffs,” she marvels. “When the crew brought their kids onto set, they would see me and start crying. They were like, ‘Blanche Neige!’”

View Lily Collins’ wardrobe picks »
Read the interview with Lily Collins »

There was a strange moment yesterday at the Tuileries when a crowd of several dozen photographers made their way towards the big white show tent for the Christian Dior Spring 2011 show.

The tightly-packed group seemed to glide across the gravel like a swarm of bees. Their cameras were held aloft, but the person at the centre of the pack was totally obscured by beefcake bodyguards.

Who could draw such a fuss? Yves Saint Laurent back from the dead?

You finally have your chance to share a drink with the Kaiser: Karl Lagerfeld has designed a limited-edition bottle for Coca-Cola Light (Europe’s equivalent to our Diet Coke) complete with his own high-collar silhouette.  [Styleite]

Yet another -ista term is making the rounds: kitchenista. The New York Post talks to a group of fashion lovers who are dealing with Manhattan’s cramped closet conditions by filling fridges and ovens full of shoes and clothes. One asked her superintendent to turn of the gas in her over so she didn’t accidentally bake her wardrobe. [NYP]

Vogue‘s most visible caftan wearer, André Leon Talley, told the Globe & Mail that he would never make it to Toronto Fashion Week:

“I’m too busy. I just would never be able to. My schedule just can’t permit it.”

But then Jeremy Laing, Erdem and Mark Fast show in New York and London to get the audience they need.

Well, then that’s what they have to do.

Well. That’s that then. [Globe & Mail]