Fashion took over Toronto last week, as some of Canada's best designers showed their new Spring and Summer 2012 collections. The week took place in the David Pecault Square, right in the heart of downtown Toronto. Canada Cool is the theme for the weeks festivities, spotlighting Canada's most innovative and noteworthy designers.
The week features 40 different designers, all with 40 different styles, the amount of creativity packed into these five days is amazing... But I've gone through and picked out my top five designers from the week, based on how they design, what the design, and how much impact their designs have on me.
The first designer I loved this year was Arthur Mendonca, a Toronto based designer known the world over. His first collection appeared in 2002, and since then he has shown in New York, Montreal, Sao Paulo, London, and Los Angelos. His new Spring and Summer collection showed that the hem lines have dropped, and neck lines have gone up, with the exception of geometrical plunges. He works with classic and contemporary fabrics, mixing tweed with leather, using metallic details along trim lines for added interest. His colours range from neutrals like cream and brown, to splashes of colour on shoulder pieces and strips along the edges, to dramatic floral prints and loud full colour dresses. Mendonca uses geometric shapes throughout the collection, bringing the shape into his pocket structure, collar pieces, and cut outs on the necklines of his dresses. Overall, I love the collection, its wearable, but it's still fashion forward enough to stand out among the other designers that showed this week.
Arthur Mendonca's full collection
Lala Berlin is another designer I fell in love with this year, she opened the week right after Mendonca, she is one of the few non-Canadian designers featured this week, born in Tehran, she went to Berlin in 2001 and started her label. Originally she was a freelance editor, but she is now known through Germany as a designer who produces wearable garments that allow a woman's style to show through. The new Spring/Summer 2012 collection is everything I love about this years trends, but intensified. Menswear inspired silhouettes with a feminine twist. Boxy shapes made to fit with movable materials, pleating on waistlines of bottoms, men's dress shirts taken in to flatter a woman's curves, and boxy blazers topping off fitted pants. Her use of patterns is fabulous, working with the flow of the pattern to fit and shape her work, she adds interest to otherwise simple pieces, but still keeps the look classy enough to wear everyday.
Lala Berlin's full collection
Pink Tartan is a husband/wife partnership led by Kimberly Newport-Mimran, president and head designer. She started her career in retail (my kind of woman) working in several different positions, including buying, merchandising, product development, and her most passionate, design. I'll start by saying that aside from the clothes, Pink Tartan's styling for the show is one of my favourites, the looks are simplifies, natural hair, minimal makeup, and nothing flashy in the accessories, this really allows the design to stand out, and lets myself see how the everyday woman would wear the pieces. The design are fabulous, the dresses are simply shaped with added details to enhance the shapes, well tailored jackets add a strong shoulder to the models, fuller skirts are mixed in with clean a-line shapes showing the variety in shapes for the coming season, and the punches of colour throughout. Another one of my favourite things about this collection is how the actual fabric is used in the clothing, most of the pieces showcase the unique fabric used in a simple shape, to show the texture and interest just picking something with a ruffle or a stripe for instance. I would wear this line in a heartbeat, and that's something I look for when I view the designs at fashion week.
Pink Tartan's full collection
Amanda Lewkee, is one hundred percent an inspiration. She's young, only 22, and is fresh out of Ryerson, she graduated in 2010, which is ridiculously cool that she's already showing at Fashion Week. Her style is completely outside of the box, she uses patterned textiles that add depth to her pieces, making you look longer then you usually would to get the full concept. I love the idea of all her designs, even though I don't think I would wear many of her pieces. Her styling matches her work completely, the green visors add to the collection, without taking away from it, they just are a visual addition that makes you question what you are seeing even more. Overall, her designs are eye catching and make you want to know how she came up with what she did, and what she will come up with next. Lewkee has been named one of the new designers to watch, and this collection shows why.
Amanda Lewkee's full collection
Lovas, was launched in 2008 and is designed by Wesley Badenjak who is one of Canada's new rising designers. With this collection, I've gone back to the wearable creative. He works with colour block swatches, rich full colour designs, and classic neutrals, all while keeping the looks classic and clean. His styling is the only think I would question, the use of Native head pieces and jewelry isn't something I would necessarily pair with the looks he's presented, I feel like it takes away from the lines and class of the collection. Styling aside, the collection is another one I would easily wear, yet it still shows the fashion forward thinking a designer needs to show to stand out in this group of talent.
Lovas's full collection
There are many more incredibly talented designers that took their turn on the runway last week, and yo can check out the full list of collections on the , I use everything I see as inspiration for the next thing I do, and yo can always find inspiration from a group of designers like this.