Polar Bears will guide you home.

[Fat] Part II:

Someone call PETA, the fur is about to fly.

One of Fat's greatest triumphs is the seamless transition from fashion to art. It is Wednesday night at Toronto Alternative Fashion Week, and the show is closing with a polarizing performance art piece. Polar-bear-izing, that is.

Too Hot Too Wet Too Dangerous, is a performance piece conceptualized by Karey Shinn, another former Winnipeger-turned-Toronto-based artist, who is merging together her art work and environmental activism. To cap off Fat's "Planet" themed evening, (the other nights themes are as follows: Home, Gutter, Beyond) Shinn sends out a sultry blond dressed in a teeny-weeny-bullet-proof bikini.

It seems Shinn thinks that if we're going to make it through global warming, we're going to need to be well equipped. Well equipped, and stylish. On top of the yellow bikini is an aqua blue buoyancy bustler (read: life vest) extending up towards the model's platinum, then floating down, just north of her lady-bits, Gaga style.

Here come the polar bears. And, of course, Fat's bears can dance, bringing both hip-hop and modern dance down the runway. Combining art, dance, performance and fashion, the piece pulls together all of Fat's objectives. It also follows cues from earlier in the evening: the performance is theatrics over fashion, and form over function.

Wide eyed and mesmerized, the crowd seems to wonder if they've been slipped acid and are being treated to an impromptu Flaming Lips show. "Where am I?!" comes a shriek from across the runway. But the bizarreness the reactions die down. Fat crowds can only appear shocked for so long. Just before the piece looses its appeal the show stops and the dancers take their final bow.

Exhilarated and confused, the crowd takes the absurd, curious, and creative work it has seen in stride, leaving the fermenting cellar glowing red and empty, ready whatever the next evening has in store.

The hipsters and hanger-on-ers clear out to join their fashionable friends at an Earth day celebration, held at the Mill Street brewery, directly following the show. The drinks are cheap or free, depending on who is handing out the beer chips, and Vaneska keeps us dancing later than we had expected to be out on Wednesday evening. When the night finally ends, we're groggy, exhausted, and impressed.

Until the next Fat, or the environmental end, stay sartorial prepared.