The way to build up a fashion scene in a town like Toronto is through creative collaboration, fearless design and an unabashedly indie spirit. But the retailers, designers and online innovators chosen for our annual portfolio of the city’s brightest style names already know that.
Perfecto
At the beginning of June, the team behind online mag Perfecto posted a fashion video celebrating this city’s sense of style like never before. Filmed kaleidoscope-style on Queen West, it features lots of familiar fashion biz faces showing off their enviable wardrobes, lit by a bright setting sun and scored by Gossip’s Move In The Right Direction.
“Since we couldn’t afford to do print, I definitely wanted to think of new ways of looking at content on screen,” says the site’s editor, former Fritz Helder and the Phantoms band member Diego Armand. “When using animation, GIFs, music and video, we can capture the energy of each shoot.”
To create that feeling, Armand works with a team of equally innovative collaborators including photographers May Truong, Karen Roze, Hannah Sider and Luis Mora, stylists Colleen Henman, Desire Kaniki and Yen Chen, and hair and makeup artists Kristjan Hayden, Claudine Baltazar and Luisa Duran. Armand says that what they have in common is a creative drive to make things happen and a more is more aesthetic.
“What makes it unique to Toronto is how much of a mixed bag it can be,” says Armand. “I like to show what inspires me, and it’s a usually a mix of high, low, indie, commercial. And I definitely make sure it’s ethnically diverse.”
David Hawe
Shopcaster
shopcaster.com
For indie retailers running small boutiques, the process of launching and maintaining an online store can seem just as daunting as opening a second bricks-and-mortar location. Enter Shopcaster (shopcaster.com), a website and mobile app that aggregates great buys from across the city for stretched-thin shopkeepers and virtual window shoppers.
The site’s early adapters were spots in Kensington Market and Queen West like Design Republic, Deluxe and Duke’s Cycle. They regularly use it to post pictures of new buys and unique finds that get featured in a live stream of products and categorized into sections like furniture, vintage and pet buys.
“The better the photo, the better the results,” says Shopcaster co-founder Judy Sims, who also reports that new updates to the site help retailers take better pictures with special filters and the ability to combine many shots into single images. “Very early on, retailers started reporting that people were coming into their stores and making a beeline for a particular product that they saw on Shopcaster.”
Now though, you can also buy on the go. Shopcaster just added e-commerce to its site, including the ability to purchase items from multiple retailers in one transaction.
David Hawe
Muttonhead Collective
It’s hard to decide which aspect of Muttonhead Collective’s business to heap praise on first.
There’s the clothing line, a collection of locally made sportswear like drawstring parkas and raglan sleeve sweatshirts, launched three years ago by sisters Mel and Meg Sinclair and Paige Cowan and now found in over 50 stores in 14 countries around the world. There are its collaborations – product partnerships with other indie outfits including Montreal’s Raised by Wolves and Colorado’s Topo, that have cleverly opened the collection up to new markets and merch categories. And then there are its Mutts & Co. Variety Store pop-up shops that debuted in Toronto and expanded to Vancouver this fall.
Perhaps that last accomplishment actually deserves our top kudos for bringing together labels in an era when creating a sense of community among fashion designers is increasingly tricky.
“We saw a need for locally made goods within the garment industry and began to team up with other like-minded brands to make people aware of supporting local,” says Meg Sinclair. “Using our resources, we were able to grow the idea and provide an opportunity for smaller brands to showcase their stuff.”
Paola Fullerton
theshows.com
A lot of sponsorship dough gets thrown around during the fortnight that makes up Toronto’s biannual Fashion “Week,” but not much of that money makes it to the designers who take on the pricey task of showing their collections on the catwalk. So kudos to The Shows’ founder Paola Fullerton and one of her backers, shipping company DHL, for balancing out that equation.
This season they launch a Friends of Fashion program offering designers a 60 per cent discount on shipping everything from raw materials to finished products. Don’t understand how that will help? Think of the courier costs designers incur every time a bolt of fabric crosses the Atlantic from an Italian mill, or a new collection is sent to a retailer across our vast country. That overhead gets built into the price of every garment, contributing to consumer sticker shock on locally made goods and dwindling designer profit margins.
“This collaboration will help change the business for our fashion community,” says Fullerton about the DHL deal. “Ultimately, we share a passion not only for celebrating Canadian design talent but also for creating a genuine support system for each designer.”
Stefania Yarhi
Adrian Wu
adrianwu.com
It takes something special to make a fashion editor smile (style is a very serious business, don’t you know), but I’m pretty sure I was grinning from ear to ear when I walked into the runway room set up for Adrian Wu’s fall 2012 presentation in David Pecaut Square last March.
The big-talking, mop-topped 22-year-old designer snaked an astroturf catwalk through the all-white tent between a pair of Dr. Seuss-esque apple trees made entirely out of balloons. Then the models emerged in polka-dot frocks and Guy Fawkes masks.
The quirky concept didn’t necessarily make sense, but at least Wu strived to create a moment. Design choices aside (though I don’t think that Wu’s fashion skills should be so quickly discounted), he undeniably brings a sense of showmanship and self-promotion sorely lacking on the city’s fashion scene.
Images from that last show went viral via Gawker.com, and we’re all looking forward to his spring 2013 show on October 23, wondering what Wu will do next?
Toronto designer stores
Let’s call these designers-cum-shopkeepers our sixth group of fashion heroes. They’re doing it for themselves, operating bricks-and-mortar and online retail outlets for shoppers who love looking good on the local.
18 WAITS 18waits.com
BIG IT UP 58 Spadina, 416-591-0864, bigitup.com
BIKO ilovebiko.com
COMRAGS 812 Dundas West, 416-360-7249, comrags.com
ELA elahandbags.com
EWANIKA 1083 Bathurst, 416-927-9699, ewanika.ca
FAIR TRADE JEWELLERY COMPANY 523 Parliament, 647-430-8741, ftjco.com
JESSICA JENSEN shopjessicajensen.com
JOE FRESH 60 Carlton, 416-596-7209, and others, joefresh.com
KC’S HATS 998 Bathurst, 416-538-0998, kcshats.com
KLAXON HOWL 706 Queen West, 647-436-6628, klaxonhowl.com
KVELL AND COMPANY 1198 Queen West, 647-828-8107, kvellandco.com
LABEL seenolabelboutique.com
LILLIPUT 462 College, 416-536-5933, lilliputhats.com
MODEL CITIZEN 279 Augusta, 416-553-6632, modelcitizentoronto.com
MOON moonapparel.ca
MOONROX moonrox.ca
MUTTONHEAD muttonheadcollective.com
NELLA BELLA nella-bella.com
OUTCLASS outclass.ca
PEACH BERSERK 81 Shaw, 416-504-1711, peachberserk.com
PINK TARTAN 77 Yorkville, 416-967-7700, pinktartan.com
PHILIP SPARKS 162 Ossington, 647-348-1827, philipsparks.com
ROOTS 100 Bloor West, 416-323-3289, and others, roots.com
SPEECH ssspeech.com
SYDNEY’S 682 Queen West, 416-603-3369, shopsydneys.com
VIRGINIA JOHNSON 970 College, 416-516-3366, virginiajohnson.com
WILDHAGEN 575 Queen West, 416-830-8589, wildhagenwear.com