No one would have expected the biggest threat to Toronto’s seasonal fashion institution, L’Oreal Fashion Week, to be an old brick warehouse filled with Goths, hipsters, Ryerson students and hip-hop kids, in an event called FAT.
But Toronto Alternative Fashion Week, or FAT for short, did exactly that.
Held in the Fermenting Cellar building, a funky warehouse with authentic-looking exposed beams, brick and pipes in Toronto’s Distillery District, FAT set out to combine multiple mediums, bringing together fashion, visual art and music. The three-day event took place from Oct. 17 to 19, the same week that L’Oreal Fashion Week, was hosting its Spring 2007 show, which showcases more established and well-known designers and retailers.
Vanja Vasic, FAT’s executive director, is a designer and fashion photographer herself. She said FAT was created in order to provide a ive environment for designers in Toronto who wouldn’t necessarily be welcome at mainstream fashion events.
“The goal is to push and promote emerging talent of the city and to give the opportunity for the expression of art outside the mainstream,” she said.
FAT’s marketing director, Phil Azer, said FAT, which is in its second year, was meant to provide an alternative to L’Oreal’s more pedestrian portrayal of fashion and culture.
“Basically it’s an alternative to L’Oreal’s week. From what I’ve heard, people are just sick of if. It’s always the same designers, showing the same styles. People wanted to see more new designers and a more risky style to be shown,” he said.
And the people came. Azer said the warehouse was filled to its 800-person capacity nearly every night, with about 200 volunteers working behind the scenes and ahead of time to make FAT happen.
The guests in attendance were varied, and the many fashion photographers on hand were as busy between shows photographing spectators as they were when they were in place at the end of the runway.
Each evening had a specific theme; fantasy, seduction and street. About 15 different designers were chosen to represent the theme of each evening. Seeing the diversity of designers who fit into a single theme was amazing.
Wednesday night’s Seduction theme featured everything from Rockitqueen’s Bettie Page-style sexiness to Minx’s dominatrix-inspired gothic clubwear.
Many of the designers featured were young and some are recent graduates of Ryerson University’s fashion design program. Some of the other designers featured are creating designs that don’t fit into the mould of normal fashion–like Futurstate, a line of super-modern gothic clothing made from industrial materials that scream city—vinyl, mesh, zippers and reflective materials.
In addition to the runway shows, a curated collection of work by Toronto visual artists was on display all day with free entry . On display were Bethany Ramella’s fashion photography, Eric Cheung’s ink and acryllic illustrations of city living and a video art piece displaying an animated photo sequence. Live bands and DJs entertained between runway shows, adding to the atmosphere of each night.
“Having all of these artists together, there is an energy, a fusion with fashion, art and music. And it make networks between young, talented artists,” Vasic said. “You get all this creative energy working together and [it’s] an amazing energy for the city.”
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Helen Mo is an independent designer who is building creative energy here in Kingston. The B.Ed ’07 student sells her handmade jewelry at the Green Room, who finds design comes naturally to her perfectionist personality.
“I have always really loved to draw and I’ve loved design. Out of sheer perfectionism or the fact that really bad design bothers me, I started taking apart jewelery and making stuff I really liked. [Jewelry] has always been a side project. I had always thought of myself more as someone who drew or designed clothing,” Mo said.
After talking with a friend who was interested in jewelry design, Mo was sucked in.
“Over the next year or so, I spent hundreds of dollars. Maybe it was part of my obsessive compulsiveness – I couldn’t stop once I got started. I would have $200 worth of beads and I’d be thinking ‘If only I could get that one opaque, pink bead.’” Though she may have a fastidious personality, that nitpickiness only comes through in her jewelry in the quality of craftsmanship. Mo’s designs are risky, creative and seem __ in a sort of dream world.
“I think I have sort of a whimsical approach,” said Mo, who says that her biggest inspiration in jewelry design is food. “All of my beads look like candy, in the way that jewels or candy looked in my imagination as a little girl, when everything was this platonic ideal and perfect.”
Mo began by giving away her jewelry, before moving on to selling some pieces as a way of ing her habit and to allow her to make more pieces to give away. At a summer office job at the City of Toronto, Mo pinned earrings to the wall of her cubicle for co-workers to purchase. She said she sometimes finds selling her work very difficult.
“If I’m spending an hour on a pair of earrings, and its something that I really love, like the colour reminds me of sherbet or something, I get really attached.
“You don’t want to feel like you’re pimping out your stuff. You don’t want to let it go if you feel like people don’t appreciate it or that they don’t differentiate between that and what’s made in China for two cents.”
Mo said she finds the Kingston market has an aesthetic that she fits into better than she does at home in Thornhill.
“There is a really nice, warm, fairly artistic community especially in the downtown area. There’s quite a niche for handcrafted things, products that are more one-of-a-kind,” Mo said. “It’s a fairly intelligent type of appreciation. I feel like wit in design is appreciated. For example, if you name a pair of earrings in Kingston, something sort of quirky with an allusion, in a student town that will be appreciated. Especially with arts students, funky scarves, artistic earrings are not expensive but are a place for personal expression, so those things do well.”
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The fusion of different mediums seemed to work at FAT—there were times during the week when the lines dividing artist, musician and designer were blurred.
During Tahnee Reyes’ show, models dressed Reyes’ vintage-style officewear walked the runway wearing ball gags and were escorted by figures in torn suits with horrific masks. The show, which transformed runway into theatre, drew connections between bondage, women’s fashion, patriarchy and the office workspace. Perhaps the most striking image was that of a figure in a troll-like mask with wild hair and wearing a shredded business suit dragging two models down the runway by their pelvis, one of whom was completely bare-breasted.
The next night, UsThemWe had heavily-tattooed models, wearing 1940s starlet dresses, kneel at a prayer bench half-way up the runway, in a similar attempt to present the designs in a creative and provocative.
Between masked men, vinyl dominatrix clothing, Bettie Page and the $5 cover charge for students, one thing was clear: this ain’t your mother’s fashion week.
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