Oh Canada! At the fifth annual CAFA awards in Toronto last Friday, fashion’s glitterati came out to shine in a manner that has hardly been a hallmark of prudent, practical, nice Canadians. Sparkle, tulle and trains were the trends of the evening, in most spectacular fashion. There was Toronto socialite and philanthropist Sylvia Mantella in a [...]
Jam-packed, raucous and buzzy. Soignée, elegant and bubbly. Those were the moods at two back-to-back shows at different events to close out a week of fashion in Montreal. Quelle semaine! Fashion Preview, the showcase for emerging Quebec designers and fashion schools, took to the catwalk for its ninth edition Monday through Wednesday. On the final [...]
In 1987, Marie Charest had big dreams to launch her fashion design label. Late one evening at the St-Denis St. landmark restaurant L’Express, her friend Thierry made a suggestion: “Use your own name,’’ he advised. That she did, but changed it to Marie Saint Pierre – St-Pierre being her mother’s name. The anecdote is one [...]
Four years and growing, the Cabinet Éphémère, that roving popup of Quebec designers, has moved into Rockland Centre. The store is a delight, festooned with flowers and pink planter pots, with a beige carpet that has been brought to life with the graffiti-esque scrawlings of Ojo. Fitting rooms are art installations – garden scenes, giant [...]
Journalist, editor, writer, blogger, fashionista – and now, apparently, I'm an influencer. Rockland Centre, which I have frequented forever, picked five women of influence to headline its fall campaign. In this ever-changing media landscape, it’s people with a personal sense of style and their own niche in cyberspace – social media numbers are key – who [...]
The Festival Mode & Design, the annual celebration of fashion on the street for the people, came to a close Saturday night. There was something for everybody in this 16th edition – 20 conferences from lofty names like Hervé (Leger) Leroux, Scott Schuman and Charlie Le Mindu, catwalk shows from our high street brands – [...]
The fall/winter fashion previews continue apace. In the past few days, as winter has re-emerged, Judith & Charles and Marie Saint Pierre have invited media to view upcoming collections. It's a little bit funny. The fashion seasons are becoming a thing of the past: Burberry was the biggest recent name to dispense with the six-month [...]
The 34th ArtFifa festival unrolls Thursday, March 10, and goes for 10 days. There are a few fashion flicks for my fashionista friends. First, Revealing Marie Saint Pierre, an exploration of the influence of Jean-Paul Riopelle on Quebec's fashion doyenne, has its world premiere March 12, with a second screening March 14. My post about the film [...]
There is a photo of Marie Saint Pierre as a teenager in a new documentary about the celebrated Montreal designer. Her hair is a frizzy mess, her eyes rimmed and smokey with makeup, and she's holding a cigarette and playing with a straw with a provocative open mouth, clutching what may be a coke, or a rum and [...]
My hair has a life of its own, clothes that look fabulous in the mirror can be awful on camera and I don't photograph well at all. The dull mauve-brown lipstick I love really doesn't suit me that well. And what's more, I've aged. None of this is new to me, but I have decided to [...]