Anyone who had an invite to Holt Renfrew’s TIFF party on Saturday night and expected it to be stuffy affair had another thing coming.
And it wasn’t just because, for the first time in our film festival party memory, the luxe retailer left its Bloor street flagship to host the annual bash on the sixth floor of the Burroughes Building at Queen and Bathurst.
The store’s event team enjoys making a scene whether its creating a circus (literally) like they did two years ago to launch Sienna Miller’s Twenty8Twelve clothing collection or last TIFF’s diner-themed basement bash where a performance by MGMT got even the bluest blood in the room bubbling.
The off-the-beaten path location was a risky move since, more than any night during this year’s festival so far, TIFF’s Saturday social schedule was focused on Yorkville.
George Christie hosted his annual Four Seasons mixer where Kim Catrall, Peter Sarsgaard and Carey Mulligan lunched with Mulrooneys and Mimrans.
A fan mob clogged the intersection of Bay and Bloor outside the Birks store where Hello! magazine drew editors like accomplished TIFF tweeter and FLARE boss Lisa Tant, model Monika Schnarre and talent like Tara Spencer-Nairn and The Trotsky’s Jesse Camacho.
Below Yorkville in that abandoned Bay station, a Soho House and Grey Goose party filled the platform with Hollywood heavy hitters including Michael Caine, Clive Owen, Sam Neill and Harvey Weinstein.
And across the street, on top of the Hazelton Hotel’s parking garage, ET Canada’s first party drew the cast of Defendor.
But back at Holts, the room was still packed and sweaty though not as uncomfortable as it could have been considering rumour had 1200 people weaseling their way onto the guestlist and the sixth floor of the building has a capacity of 500.
Coco Rocha hushed the crowd to introduce a vignette starring her and model bestie Behati Prinsloo running through the Gladstone in a flurry of fall fashion before the screen dropped and The Stills rocked the room.
More Trotsky-ites including filmmaker Jacob Tierney and stars Emily Hampshire and Jessica Pare mingled with fashion faces like IWantIGot’s Anita Clarke, illustrator Danielle Meder and Greta Constantine designers Stephen Wong and Kirk Pickersgill.
After handing over the turn tables to MTV It-host, Alexa Chung, Rocha spent the rest of the night hamming it up with a Fashion Television crew while the bash, to the surprising satisfaction of those Holts party planners, got messier and messier.[rssbreak]
