Day 1: Bonjour, allo, salut!
I’m on the train to Montreal enjoying a delightfully potent gin and tonic and scanning through the various weekend style section coverage of Toronto’s fashion week. For our complete wrap up of this season’s biggest hits and some thoughts on the fashion-as-culture debate that bubbled under the fall collections, check out the Fashion Notes section of this week’s paper and Stylesheet (subscribe by clicking over to www.nowtoronto.com/newsletters).
Montreal Fashion Week is a different breed of style convention from Toronto’s party heavy and hyper-attended shows. There is still a strong sense of couture celebration and an enthusiastic turn out but there are also constant reminders that we are all attending the shows to take part in the business of fashion. The city is still a major clothing manufacturing centre in North America and the success of Montreal talent affects local jobs and international trade.
The pre-event press release proudly announces that over twenty different retailers and buyers from Europe and North America will be attending shows by Montreal staples like Marie Saint Pierre, Envers and Rudsak and newer entries Rush Couture and Soku menswear.
We’re pumped (and a little tipsy) for another week of runway side sitting and rifling through the thesaurus to hunt down synonyms for “fabulous” so click over tomorrow for our first round of reviews.
On today: Marisa Minicucci presents her M Siamo line and Montreal’s grand fashion dame Marie Saint Pierre lets hometown love pour over her beautifully black fall looks.
