Witness my shame

The tittle of an amazing book by Canadian artist Shary Boyle is also exactly how I feel...Resolution before the end of year and for the New Year: keep up.

I have missed so many news, so many ideas...so many profiles. I am sure there will be so much more Canada in fashion next year...

Chilly Gonzales

Favorite record of the moment: Ivory Tower by Chilly Gonzales.
Gonzales is the musician, pianist, producer, and Guinness world record holder from Canada with a Mexican bought name who lives in Paris.
For a fashion reference, the track above was used in the Chanel Haute Couture FW10/11 show.
For pop reference, when you see an iPad ad you are listening to his music.
For fun:

CALLA Printemps Été 2011

Qui est Thomas Tait?

photo from: The Business of Fashion

More on Thomas Tait from one of my favorite sites from another Canadian; The Business of Fashion

Jeremy Laing's amazing collection

Jeremy Laing SS11 Collection

Jeremy Laing the aesthete simply showed the best collection of his career. Mature, desirable, modern, sexy, and most importantly true to his take on fashion.

Also noting that Jamie Sin's jewelry pieces played the perfect accompanying role.

style.com

Rad Hourani's way

Last night was the livestream of Rad Hourani's Unisex NYFW show. Rad has been very good at implementing the latest commercial strategies in the business; diffusion line, online shop, and now the shop the collection right away. He is one of the designers that hopefully is changing an antiquated system by which clothes are commercialized.

Me too

Colette loves Canada. colette.fr

Memories of winter wear...It looks best on a window display.

Archiving

It's been almost a month since this came out and I am only posting now. A month a long time ago was recent, a month these days it means I am in the business of archiving.

I am very happy that Jessica Johnson took inspiration from this blog for the tittle of her Walrus article exploring Canadian Fashion.

The Canadian School The Walrus

Canadian Cool

Back from holidays to find out that this weekend's New York Times' T Magazine feature on "Canadian Cool" , the Style Map section featuring my other home: Toronto. Love it!

See it all here.

The Bieber: something Canadians can be proud of

Justin Bieber's Paris girlfriend

This is mostly a documentation on fashion but the most famous Canadian these days is a certain someone called Justin Bieber. The teens love him; the adults are sick of him; and then there are the ones whom have made the Bieber their latest pop culture obsession.

I mean the teen idol's name is Bieber... I wonder if The Beaver in Toronto will host a special music night for the Canadian heartthrob. I know of people who would love to go to that party: "Biber at the Beaver".

Some Bieber related sites:

www.callbieber.com

Lesbians who look just like Justin Bieber

The Beaver Toronto

In Paris - Rad Hourani

If in Paris for menswear fashion week Rad Hourani's Tranclassic show opening on Wednesday, June 23rd is a must.

Galerie Joyce
Palais Royal 168 Galerie de Valois 75001 at 8pm.

Roots x Coupland go electric

This one goes under interesting collaborations: famous Canadian author, artist, and general culture observer Douglas Coupland is collaborating with clothing and lifestyle retailer Roots on a limited edition collection of clothes, accessories and decor pieces under the theme "Canada goes electric".

We could call this a match made in Canadian heaven as both the artist and the brand have been good representatives of Canada's cultural landscape.

It's all gone Mark Fast

Mark Fast's "The ascension of beauty"

As someone pointed out Toronto recently went Mark Fast crazy; news and tweets from the city were all about Mark's visit. Amid luncheons, dinners and parties it seems Mark was very busy during his time in Toronto to instal his Luminato -Toronto's festival of arts+creativity - "The ascension of beauty" sculpture. The visual arts piece reinterprets the Lancôme’s iconic rose and femininity to celebrate the brand’s 75th anniversary.

Fast Kisses

The city also has an opportunity to wear a shade of Mark Fast with a limited edition lipstick Fast Kisses created for Lancôme in collaboration with makeup artist Lora Spiga sold exclusively at The Bay Queen in Toronto.

I am torridly late on these news but late is better than never...and today, June 20th, is the last day to see the sculpture at Brookfield Place

Mark Fast for Topshop

And in other Mark Fast news on June 25th in any city with a Topshop (no luck for Paris or Toronto) will see the launch of the new collection done in for the British retailer.

I should update more often!

Thank you to Flare for the shoutout! It came as a total surprise.

Now I could just get a couple of hours added to the 24hr day I could be post more often...

More posts coming this week for sure.

Via: Final Fashion & a phone call from my mom.

Paris Vogue ANDAM feature with lauréats CALLA and Mark Fast

Here the pages from June's Paris Vogue ANDAM feature of the nominees CALLA and Mark Fast.

One word: AMAZING

Tommy Ton's Epic Tour de France

I have become the internet version of a surrogate mother who collects her darling child's fame clippings, something like that anyway... darling child in this case equals Canadians in fashion.

In any case, I remember when Tommy Ton was on this epic trip for GQ France, going around taking photos of the best mens' stores and stylish men in this fashionable country. There was time for a Mean Girls viewing, dinners, etc, all of a sudden it was as though Tommy was living in Paris. Being away so much he pretty much can say he lives everywhere.

P.S.- This I might add was a pretty epic scan.

CALLA & Mark Fast nominated for ANDAM!

Said it a while back...the Canadian School of Fashion is having a moment. Let's say this is their year. CALLA & Mark Fast (Ontario & Winnipeg) get nominated for ANDAM, the young French designer award. Congratulations to both!

If in Toronto on May 27th

I go this invite for Strut for a Cause on my email inbox; not only is it planned for a good cause- 100% of all the money raised will go towards a cure for children's cancer- but it seems that there are some well known international fashion names from Canada that are involved, such as Coco Rocha, Jeanne Beker and London based Todd Lynn.

There seems to be plenty of fashion entertainment planned for the night. If I was in Toronto I would go...

Buy tickets here.

Good excuse

Canadian artist Terence Koh with lady Gaga and the infamous defaced Birkin Purple Diary

I was busy defacing all my designer bags...not really. I was just working on something pretty big for the past 2 weeks, it involves Canada + Fashion. That is my good excuse for not posting for so long... the big reveal will come soon.

I will just say for now that this is Canada's year in fashion. Mark my words.

On the not so latest news:

Already mentioned it, but must say it again Erdem wins the British Fashion Concil/Vogue award: "the biggest sum ever awarded to a fashion designer" in that country. Flower Dressing: Why Erdem is a winner. The Times

CALLA in the New Designer Alert Hintmag

Rad Hourani writes about his one and favorite color: Black is the New Black. T Magazine

Canada + Britain Part deux

Tonight in Toronto the lovely Agyness Deyn and Tommy Ton are hosting a party, which has brought on the love blogging sign outside the entrance of the space where the party is taking place. Super funny. Can someone send me photos of the actual party?

And speaking of sending photos, thank you, it's really nice getting comments and material from readers.

Jane at the London Telegraph's Stella magazine sent this great photo taken at a British Vogue dinner for emerging designers which she very appropriately called "Canadians at Vogue" with Mark Fast, Jean Pierre Braganza, and Todd Lynn. Erdem might have been missing as he was collecting a big BFC/Vogue award prize, more on that later...

Quote of the day by Tommy Ton

"We have witnessed within the past year that you can be anyone living anywhere and become influential overnight" - Tommy Ton in Self Service

It's Toronto Fashion Week!

photo by George Pimentel

Here an image from the Holt Renfrew media breakfast with designers Jeremy Laing, Mikhael Kale, Greta Constantine's Stephen Wong and Kirk Pickersgill, Denis Gagnon and models wearing looks from their collection. They are all great designers working in Canada (Jeremy still lives in Toronto even

though he is on calendar for NYFW).

For more info on Toronto's fashion week you can go LG Fashion Week

Industrial Design - Phillipe Malouin

NextLevel Galerie, Paris

Philippe Malouin

Montreal born, London based Philippe Malouin is immensely talented, super funny, and well I am going to go ahead and say it "very easy on the eye". I met him almost a year ago at a party, got a preview of his humor but did not see his work until much later when I caught it in The New York Times magazine when he was chosen as one of the designers to watch at the prestigious Salone Mobile in Milan last year. Since then Philippe launched his interior architecture firm Post Office with his friend Sacha Leoung, has been working on freelance projects with Tom Dixon , and most recently put together his first solo at NextLevel Galerie in Paris. The reason to feature him other than the obvious? While getting to know him I found out Philippe is one of Rad Hourani's very good friends. The case of two young friends from Montreal on the rise.

Erdem & HH aka H.O.H

Erdem and Henry Holland

I think I am going to have to start a category named "Pulling all stops to include non-Canadians I like in The Canadian School of Fashion" I have managed pretty well with Caroline and Francesco. So today when I found the image of Erdem with Henry in Derek Blasberg's fashion weeks photo diary. I was like bingo!! Here the way to include my first ever tequila pimping client. But I think I will only truly succeed when I have a photo of James Deeny wearing his Canadian Tuxedo which I have been dying to talk about but won't until I have a photo of him. I can also file this under "inside joke".

The Hudson's Bay Company co-sponsors a major fashion award

The St. Regis Room then. Photo from National Post

The Room now

The Room's First Campaign with Daria Werbowy

New York and London are well know for the support of fashion designers with awards like the CFDA and BFC respectively to promote young designers and reward established ones. Over the last little while there has been a lot of talk in fashion circles about the fact that unlike New York and London there are no new names coming out of the capital of fashion. The recent documentary Habillées by the amazing Mademoiselle Agnès took a look at this problem by focusing on the search of the new design talent in France catching some endearing moments on film. This is all about to change in a big way as Paris Vogue's Carine Roitfeld will be the chairman of the jury of this year's Andam (The French National Association for the development of the Fashion Arts) award with the significantly larger prize award of 220 000€. And why does this all matter to Canada? Because the Hudson's Bay Company is one of the 2 new award partners along with Renzo Rosso's group Only The Brave (Diesel, Maison Martin Margiela, Viktor & Rolf...). The panel of jurors this year includes Jefferson Hack, Hilary Alexander, Humberto Leon, Delphine Arnault,Alber Elbaz, amongst important French names. The influential international jury means that we will be hearing and reading a lot from the French award in the next little while. With that said it is safe to say that the HBC is quickly positioning itself in an international playing field. Take note of things like Canadian supermodel Daria Werbowy being the campaign face of the recently revamped The Room and the successful HBC Vancouver Winter Olympics collection. The revitalizing of The Bay by president and CEO Bonnie Brooks, one of the most respected names in the business after heading Lane Crawford for many years, is working.

The first trading company in North America is obviously set for a major comeback.

This week's strong Canadian connection with Karl Lagerfeld

Karl and Bruce at Karl’s studio in Paris. (Photo by Olivier Saillant)

Self-portrait by Karl Lagerfeld

Since Karl likes comics of himself, we commissioned this one by Johnny Ryan.

Karl in the film L’Amour, 1973. (Photo from The Films of Paul Morrissey by Maurice Yacowar, Cambridge University Press, 1993) All images from Vice magazine

Bruce LaBruce's Vice magazine interview with Karl Lagerfeld came out and it it is by far one of the most interesting ones I have ever read. Only Bruce could say to say to Lagerfeld  "I think that you might have Asperger syndrome. Do you know what that is? It’s a kind of autism. It’s like an idiot savant", say it self assuredly, and have the Kaiser agree. They are both erudite people who are able to communicate on an equal footing, more over I love the fact that the 7 page interview did not focus on fashion. A MUST READ

On a fashion note, Bruce looks great.

So now to Lagerfeld's other Canadian connection this week with  Tommy Ton  being involved in an unfortunate appropriation of words. The blogosphere has been busy with rumors that Lagerfeld is exiting Chanel, due to a statement he made being twisted  into a theory by Grazia Australia. Twist all you want...Tommy's news are not so.

I am starting to think that Grazia magazine is all about stirring controversy first Tavi now Tommy. Hmm...I smell grabbing tactics.