Dear Wondergirls: welcome to the front row.

Life after reality (television)

Though autumn’s cold, windy weather has arrived, designer Sunny Fong transformed the Art Gallery of Ontario into a tropical paradise at yesterday’s kick off to Toronto Fashion Week.

The show, inspired by French Polynesia, was Fong’s first since winning the second season of Project Runway Canada last April. It also served as the re-launch of Fong’s label, VAWK, which went under before he appeared on the show.

With the help of his new business partner, Canadian entrepreneur Ben Barry, Fong resurrected the label and created a collection of twelve looks to show at LG fashion week. The garments included a leather trench, a white power pantsuit, a flowing dress with a sheer floral cutout, and a floor-length chiffon gown that closed the show.

Fong mixed muted ivory and cream with hints of vibrant fuchsia and red, inspired by the colours of the hibiscus flowers that grow in Polynesia. Fong paid close attention to detail, punching holes in intricate patterns on leather items and twisting organza silk to create plush textures. Looks were completed by thick brown belts and fringed necklaces.

Alongside the press and usual fashion industry insiders, who sat in rows of chairs set up in the AGO’s foyer, Fong’s fans piled into the hallways overlooking the runway, which served as the show’s general admission area. The show also streamed live on VAWK’s website, as Alexander McQueen’s show did earlier this season in Paris.

Jason Meyers and Jessica Biffi, the two runners up from season two of Project Runway, are also showing collections this week. Meyers is showing this evening at 5 pm, and Biffi, who attended Fong’s show, will present her collection on Friday.

*This post is pulled from Canada.com, where I'll be reporting over the coming weeks. You can see the video footage, shot by the boys at Slice, alongside the article, which is posted here.

The fashion famous

In a room where everyone is all prettied up, it’s hard to tell the somebodies from the nobodies. Such was the case tonight. Along side the media baronesses, grocery lords, and Canadian TV actors were interns, students, assistants, and the guests of guests. So goes the fashion industry.

The crowd came for cocktail hour at Holt Renfrew, the official kick-off to fashion week. A miniature runway showcased looks by Canadian designers such as Jeremy Laing, Greta Constantine, and Pink Tartan. The partygoers watched with eager eyes as looks for next spring and summer were paraded.

The buzzed-about boys behind Greta Constantine showed off space age leather leg-wear from their new Ezra Constantine menswear line, Mikhael Kale assembled an assortment of minis, and Denis Gagnon gave his do-it-yourself customized Aldo shoes their Toronto debut.

But fashion aside, the evening was mostly about mingling. After the air-kisses came the exchange of cards, BBM pin swaps, and associate introductions. Then there was the incessant taking of photos for blogs, fashion rags, and Facebook. And as they were asked to pose both the bold-faced and fashion anonymous puckered their lips, tilted their heads, and tried to look thin.

Under that bright-white camera flash the couture customers bled right into the cultural observers. Everyone looked famous. But before my TV-aided delusions of Gossip Girl grandeur grew, I decided to make a swift exit and head back to my bachelor apartment for freezer food and photo editing.

Until tomorrow morning, when I get to play dress-up again.

Mr. Michael Seater

Life with accessories

Posing for the pit

A darling David Pike, in the thick of things

Greta in gold

Two thirds of 3 of hearts

Much Aldo about nothing

Music video madness

All is good in greyscale

Saturdays with Jeanne

"The week's tour de force was undeniably the underwater fantasy concocted by Alexander McQueen," Ms. Beker writes in Saturday's Globe. And though I wasn't in Paris, sitting on a patio in Montreal with my afternoon paper, I have to agree. Deep breaths, McQueen. Swoon.

The sun is bright, the air is cold, and so is my beer. Skipping over the Nobel Peace debate I make my way to fashion pages to read about the week that was across the pond. Galliano, Viktor, Rolf, Gaultier, Jacobs, and McCartney, the laundry list of names reads. And amongst them a Canadian known more for communications than couture: Rogers.

Married to the third, she's a philanthropist and fashionista, and apparently made a stir in Paris, Ms. Beker writes.

An uber-glam blonde with Dolly Parton hair, crystal-studded sunglasses and a gargantuan black skirt has captivated the camera crews outside the big tent at the Tuileries Gardens. “Wow! Who is she?” a German reporter asks.

Suzanne Rogers, the woman helping bring Oscar back to Canada. We'll thank you for that later, Ms. Rogers, but for now, enjoy your moment. Dolly Parton hair, and all.

And I'll enjoy my beer, paper, sunny afternoon, and wait to see what you turn up in next week, in Toronto.

Until then.

Suzanne Rogers, via Twit Pic @LisaTant

Underwater, under beer

Afternoons in orange

Sweet, sweet, sweeter, sweenter

Belle

Time to get lost again

The Maddest Man: 

Thom Browne leads Brooks Brothers to the forefront, and to Toronto

Photo: GentryStyle.com

Brooks Brothers  is the type of brand that’s passed down from father to son. It’s easy to imagine an Upper East Side dad bringing in a newly hired son—recently returned from the Ivy League—to be custom fit for a suit before his first day in the financial big leagues. Amongst old money Manhattanites, it’s something of a ritual.

And with the opening of a   sprawling 22,000 sq. ft. flagship shop in Toronto’s financial district, our city’s fathers and sons can now be outfitted in Brooks Brothers, too. Fresh off a flight from Manhattan, the brand’s communications manager,   Arthur Wayne, gave me a tour of the new store.

After a firm handshake and hello there was one thing I needed to see before sitting down with the company’s CEO to talk business. Take me to the  Thom Browne, I told Wayne. With a knowing smile Wayne led me towards   Black Fleece by Brooks Brothers, the collection Browne designs for the brand.

A hit with fashion critics, Black Fleece made buzz for Brooks Brothers again, after a rocky decade under the management of  Marks and Spencer. Hiring the designer, whose known for his cutting edge take on traditional menswear and his high tailored trousers, is one of the steps chairman and CEO   Claudio Del Vecchio has taken to revitalize the iconic American brand since purchasing the label in 2001.

“As we were making the effort to bring back the brand to the place we felt it belonged, we were looking to speed up that process and appeal to a customer who might have given up on Brooks Brothers,” Vecchio later explained to me, seated next to a branded pillow one of the couches tucked into the back of the store. It was at that point that editrix Anna Wintour introduced Vecchio to Browne, who Vecchio eventually signed. “We got to know [Thom Brown], put the two things together, and thought he could help us,” Vecchio said.

Proud of her match making abilities, Wintour hasn’t been shy about drumming up positive PR for the label. “Anna Wintour named dropped you on Letterman the other night, you know,” I said to Wayne as he walked ahead of me through the store. Wayne cranked his neck back towards me, his eyes lighting up. “I know,” he gleamed. “That was a big day for me.”

As popular dress continues to take its nostalgic turn backwards in time, Wayne can expect many more big days for Brooks Brothers. Having dressed plenty of presidents passed—everyone from Kennedy and Eisenhower to Bill and Barack—the brand now has a chance to picture itself inside of contemporary pop culture.

Wayne recounted a recent episode of  Entourage, on which Turtle and Jamie-Lynn Sigler shop for Turtle’s back-to-school wardrobe at the Brooks Brothers on Rodeo Drive. When Jamie tells turtle he looks great in a madras shirt, Turtle scoffs, as Wayne imitated, “I look like Chuck Bass.” But it was Bass too that began to expose the brand to younger viewers, wearing plenty of the label on  Gossip Girl, which Brooks Brothers helped create costumes for.

Most of all though, it’s Mad Men that’s brought Brooks Brothers to the forefront of pop culture. The meticulously created period-piece looks on the show have earned stylist  Janie Bryant nominations at both the Costume Designers Guild Awards and the Emmys. And as Wayne explained, the designing of Don Draper began with Brooks Brothers.

Before she started styling the first season, Bryant spent a week in New York at the Brooks Brothers archives, pulling out suits from the sixties. Once she was satisfied with her carefully curated selection of suits and ties, Brooks Brothers helped her re-source the original fabrics to keep the styles authentic, and had each suit re-made for Mad Men’s male characters. Since then, the brand has assisted Bryant in the styling of each season.

“The style of that show has done tremendous things for the Menswear industry,” Wayne said. Though the brand has hesitated to leverage the connection to the heavily hyped show with any official initiatives, as  Banana Republic did with its recent Mad Men photo contest, Wayne says the connection has given Brooks Brothers a chance to talk about its heritage (a cornerstone of its latest communication) with the press.

“It’s a matter of how much you want to scream about it. Our approach will be different than the great thing Banana did,” Wayne said. “With Brooks Brothers, Brooks Brothers comes first. Those opportunities enhance the brand and bring it into new light, but it’s not something we depend on.”

So will we see any future marketing programs featuring the duds of Don Draper? I asked.

With a secretive smile he looked at me and said, “The season’s not over yet.”

Riding in elevators with Miss Wintour
(design by Chris Sauve)

On Sunday night, in millions of rooms across America, Morley Safer turned to fashion's most powerful woman and asked about an elevator.

There is a rumour, it seems. No one is to speak to Anna in the elevator. Is it true? She says no.

Do we trust the ice queen? Can she not fill a room with silence with the slightest lowering of those fabled sunglasses? I had to find out.

I turned to the only living person I know to have shared an elevator's dead air with one Anna Wintour. A few hours later I had 350 crisp words, describing the fear driven into the heart of an intern by an implausibly perfect editor-in-chief.

Thanks to the often eloquent and always entertaining Miss Taylor Mckinnon for this exclusive account. Beers on me, Tay (we'll pick a bar without elevators, I promise).

--

Exactly three floors separate the Conde Naste building's cafeteria and lobby.

It was the summer of last, my New York summer, and I was an intern at a magazine in the building. I was wide-eyed, tongue-tied, and ten pounds heavier than I had planned on being when I walked through those tall glass doors for the first time. I had a new wardrobe that felt too small, too itchy in the sidewalk-scorching heat; and open sores on my feet from the heels I had finally had an excuse to wear every single day. It was just after 5. I was going home.

When the doors slid open, I recognized her instantly. Dark sunglasses, hollow cheeks, and that iconic honey-blonde bob. Fuck. Anna Wintour. For a moment after the doors closed, I felt nothing. Then the thoughts came; spastic, one on top of the other. Did I get out of the elevator? Did I flatten myself against the back wall to give her more space? Did I avert my eyes? Was I allowed to take in her watch, her necklace, her shoes?

If I were a different girl, I might have said something; might have found those perfect words to strike up a conversation in which she would respond, maybe even turn up the corners of her stoic lips in a smile. But my clothes were all wrong and my shorts were riding up and I was ten pounds heavier and ten times less interesting than I wanted to be, without an opener in the world that would be good enough.

Three floors. The doors slid open to the lobby.

Anna walked ahead through to the tall glass doors leading out to the street, where a town car, and a driver to open another door, were waiting. She slipped in and disappeared behind the blackened windows. In four seconds, the car pulled away. I exhaled. I leaned up against the building, lit a Marlboro menthol.

I walked twenty blocks in my heels towards home before I hailed a cab.

The bitch is back

Sans battering ex-boyfriend, Rhianni killed it at last night's MET Costume Ball in a blown out tuxedo by D&G. It was one of last night's few statement pieces, a disappointment considering the invitation reads costume, and the gala is one of the few red-carpet events where conservative style-rags won't attack over-the-top ensembles. Below, a few hits and misses:

Agyness Deyn and Twiggy, two generation's muses, finally together, in Burberry

Dull duo, considering Rose's Opera Gala ensemble and West's access to the LV closet

Madonna in a crazy-lady menopausal Louis Vuitton rendition of one of her 80's outfits
(*note: I'm pretty sure those are latex stripper boots) Leighton Meester wears one of the more costumey outfits at the costume ball, also courtesy of LV

That other girl from the CW, in a slutty prom dress, er, I mean, Versace