Thursday, January 17, 2008

L’Oréal Fashion Week wraps up in superfluous style

L’Oréal Fashion Week, which scheduled after the world’s top tier fashion weeks remains a superfluous, largely disregarded showcase of a handful of Canada’s brightest designers and their fashion-inclined, environmental-scanning contemporaries.

Save for the cadre of Canadian fashion, consisting of the so-called Group of Seven and the season’s standout, Paul Hardy, L’Oréal Fashion Week exists merely as a venue to offer a uniquely homegrown raison d’etre to Canada’s fashion crowd.

To wax lyrical on the prevalence of pencil skirts and bold colour is to miss the point; fashion week is not for the fashion. Rather, it’s simply for the media to clamour in their standalone tent, for the editors to look wittingly apathetic, and for the models to parade around in post-show makeup and sip on free drinks.

At the event some designers made strong arguments for fashion’s sake. Caoc dazzled the eyes with his signature shots of citrine and fuchsia, often draped and pleated by what’s obviously a novice hand. And Dixon tugged at heart strings with a collection of diaphanous, eau de nil frocks and curvilinear seaming. These constituents of the Group of Seven proved the weighty moniker to be a germane one.

In lieu of a straightforward ready-to-wear collection, Ryerson-grad Paul Hardy offered up various couture detailing generously tufted silk, pleated chiffon, and art-deco beading on several cocktail numbers.

However, the most laudable efforts were those of the Fashion Design Council of Canada (FDCC) and its fearless leader, Robin Kay. Gone was the usual out-of-the-way venue, replaced by a large white tent smack in the middle of Nathan Phillips Square a la the Bryant Part tents erected bi-annually for New York Fashion week.

The venue switch-up offered L’Oréal Fashion Week the infrastructure to compete with the top-tier fashion weeks.

Source : India Fashion Week

No comments: