By Isake Tom

Last night Canada’s top designers kicked off the 23rd season of Toronto’s LG Fashion Week with a superb showing of bright and eclectic pieces for spring/summer 2011.  Luxury retailer Holt Renfrew opened the show with leading looks by a collective of Canadian designers that included: Pink Tartan, Wings + Horns and Jeremy Laing to name a few. The night ended with a showing by sportswear label Bustle unveiling their ‘Japanese Prepster’ theme-a theme that had model’s strutting down the runway in soft pastel colours, mismatched patterns and double breasted blazers all reminiscent of the classic preppy chic look. Last night definitely proved that Canada’s Got Talent.

The fashion event always draws some of Canada’s most fashionable attendees. Below are a few trendsetter’s Sway spotted at the event.

Name: Biko Beauttah
Age: 30
Occupation: Lifestyle Expert
Favourite Fashion House: “I love Nigerian label Prima Rouge.”

Name: Naro
Age: 20
Occupation: Model
Favourite trends right now: “I love jumpsuits and I love embellishments.”

By Isake Tom

Established in 1978, Fabiani has grown to become one the leading menswear retailers in Southern Africa, with stores in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria. Now a luxury brand, Fabiani is praised for its “exceptional quality”, “unique detailing” and “distinctive styling”.

Designer Fabiani knows how to make any man look dashing in a power suit due to his use of top notch fabrication, sophisticated tailoring, and use of accessories to complete the look.

Renowned for its outstanding level of service, Fabiani provides complimentary tailoring and delivery as well as the provision of a personal fashion consultancy service.

Simply stated, passion, innovation and perfection are stitched into every Fabiani piece. Fabiani makes power dressing look effortless, providing its clients with many memorable days and nights.

Fashion Week Trinidad & Tobago: Rea McNamara picks from the Front Row

“The structured part of the uniform is very post-colonial,” the former Miss Trinidad & Tobago Universe says of a schoolgirl kilt with sexy black and gold lace peaking out of the folds. The designer is behind the upstart Pilar label.  I grew fond of its debut last season, remixing the Bobo Shanti rastafari culture’s boho African print and brightly coloured robes. It was interesting to see Meiling’s protégé go further on the subcultural mining, this time finding inspiration in island uniformity.

Photography Kerron Riley

More FWTT 2010
Millhouse

The Cloth

Meiling

A new Canadian documentary exposes racism in the fashion industry

By Simona Siad

The absence of Black models in ads, magazines and on runways is nothing new. But a Canadian-made short documentary called The Colour of Beauty, which recently premiered in Vancouver, sheds light on the bleak situation in a new way.

The film follows 24-year-old Jamaican-Canadian (and former Sway) model, Renee Thompson, as she goes on casting calls for New York’s Fashion Week and gives viewers a glimpse into the industry’s intersection of racism and definitions of beauty.

The film states that according to a 2008 survey, 87 per cent of New York Fashion Week models were white. “It gets to a point where you feel like you’re constantly justifying your worth,” says Thompson, in the film. “You can only take so much … constant rejection — or that fear that when you walk through that casting door, you’re going to be reminded, yet again, that you’re a Black girl. [But] quitting, to me, seems like you’re giving in.”

It is, however, the racially charged comments by modelling agents, like Justin Peery, and industry insiders in the film that are the most eye-opening: “When [a model] comes in with big eyes, big nose, big lips — things that are common traits in African-Americans — it doesn’t work.

But for those lucky few girls who have white girl features…” he trails off. It’s clear that those are the women who get booked. We also see Maurilio Carnino, a Fashion Week casting director and producer, state: “One time, one of my clients said, ‘I need a Black model, but she has to be like a white girl dipped in chocolate.’”

Thompson says hearing people speak this way about girls they are hiring for a job is a reality she deals with daily. “It’s not something that makes me question myself or my colour, but it’s an awareness that is very hard to swallow,” she says. “There are so many beautiful Black women who have graced the pages of magazines in the past.

But it seems like we are going back in time.” Exposing the mindset of the fashion industry seems to be a step in the right direction.

While Thompson didn’t make her goal of participating in New York Fashion Week, she is currently working to develop gender-specific workshops on self-esteem and beauty for women in juvenile detention centres. “I want girls to see someone positive who keeps trying and pushing,” she says, “I think it’s important for young girls of colour to know their worth, to have integrity.”