By Nathalie Atkinson
Weekend Post
March 19, 2005
The fashion cognoscenti gathered Wednesday evening for the New Labels show at Toronto's grand old Arcadian Court. The room was abuzz, the most important business conveyed through cryptic phrases like "hard but soft"... "feminine and masculine at the same time"... "edgy and modern" -- so full of hype and hyperbole that fashion newcomers would need a style intelligencer to decode the meaning.
Decoding the fashion business, in fact, is the role of the Toronto Fashion Incubator, which draws from the best of its young designers to show their work at tonight's New Label show each year. "Most of our residents have gone through a formal fashion program," says Incubator executive director Susan Langdon. But after that, the TFI helps young designers break into the business, with clinics and workshops designed to teach them about business plans, finding backers, managing cash flow, projecting earnings, and the like.
Some of the country's best designers are Incubator alumni, people like Joeffer Caoc, Shelli Oh, David Dixon and Olena Zylak. And don't forget Pina Ferlisi, who today is executive vice-president of design at Gap.
For their part, the young designers come equipped with $25,000 seed money for developing a collection -- necessary for materials, sewing staff and other start-up costs. But of course, money, plus proficiency threading a needle, does not a designer make.
Which is where the New Labels show helps. Last fall, a group of industry insiders presided over three elimination rounds, assessing young contestants' collections for tonight's event -- poring over everything from original sketches and patterns to assessing fabric and marketability. They sought design innovation, quality and sellability.
In January, the six semi-finalists were narrowed to three labels, all by designers in their 20s, who would show their women's wear collections. Tonight the three -- Toronto's CINCYN, designed by Cynthia Florek and Cindy Custodio; Toronto's Nostalgy, designed by Samantha Thomson; and Vancouver's PierreJale by Peter Tsang and Kelly Jale -- will be seen by influential members of the fashion circuit.
This is all about exposure, obviously. The models may be walking the runway, but it's these newbie designers who are walking the plank -- past stylists and fashion editors, past established designers, past guests such as Elizabeth Kanfer, market editor for Saks Fifth Avenue. This event is a stylish tea party -- but with claws.
Before the action begins, editors are perched in clusters on vintage-looking settees, sipping vanilla tea, sucking Altoids and, of course, gossiping. There are dozens of cameras in a teetering pyramid scrum at the foot of the marble runway.
Then the lights dim ...
First up is PierreJale's collection, accompanied by Eartha Kitt singing Je Cherche Un Homme, while scenes of Paris from Breathless are projected on-screen to set the mood -- very louche New Wave style a la Belmondo.
The collection includes a black peplum blouson with white silk cuffs fitted to the elbow with rows of tiny covered buttons; a grey silk bustier dress with centre pleats over a black silk pierrot blouson, and a brown cashmere coat with ultrasuede belted waist and trim. The final model wears a white knife-pleat skirt that is transparent under the phalanx of flash bulbs and kliegs.
Next to me is Mario Velocci, the chatty stylist and model manager. "What this season has been about is editing," he offers by way of non sequitur. "Last season, there were too many pieces. Less is more. Like Shelli Oh's show. She showed only 10 outfits, but they were all very good outfits. Editors get prima donna-like, they get bored, they don't remember every piece. You'll only remember that David Dixon was checks and that orange blouse."
Jale and Tsang come out for a bow, and someone behind me clucks cattily that Jale is wearing a pair of designer jeans instead of the line's trousers. ("Always wear your own designs. Always. It's your calling card," tsks-tsks PR maven Christine Faulhaber, one of the Incubator's advisors.)
Next, it's Nostalgy, maybe setting the style bar too high with clips from Bonnie & Clyde (with Faye Dunaway wearing Mary Quant designs).
Portrait collars, polka-dot silk blouses and some lovely cropped pants and culottes with hardware detailing at the calf make up the look. The pleated skirts are ultra-short, with corset tank tops and culottes and skirts that are perilously low-slung but pretty overall.
"That model," whispers Velocci, "was too short for that pant. I would have put a heel on her to fix that." At the end, the statuesque Thomson emerges, very chic in pieces of her own design (why, we all wonder, aren't the fantastic sparkly tweed trousers she's wearing part of her collection?).
Finally, it's CINCYN's turn, taking the crowd to 1945 with Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes pursuing Lydia Marlowe in The Woman In Green, with a bold interpretation of film costumer Vera's silhouette of nipped waists and exaggerated shoulders.
Everyone knows about the standing ovation CINCYN got during New York Fashion Week last month when the North American Fur Association played host to CINCYN and five other Canadian designers, who showed their work. So CINCYN is what everyone wants to see, and it doesn't disappoint.
Victorian ladies are reimagined in masculine tweed and raccoon holster-style shrugs; a reversible fur vest, an emerald-green silk cocktail dress, windowpane-check knickers and an animal-print silk chiffon halter gown worthy of Roberto Cavalli.
A voice behind me hisses approvingly "That is hot" at a lavender jersey dress.
Nearby, The Look's editor-in-chief, David Livingston, is nodding absent-mindedly -- or perhaps just hypnotized by the tendrils of fox cascading from a tweed shoulder.
No one is surprised when CINCYN is declared the New Labels winner, and Florak and Custodio take a victory lap down the catwalk, their Victorian ladies following.
After the show, the judges, who have followed the young designers since last fall, rave about CINCYN's collection.
Rita Silvan, editor-in-chief of Elle Canada, enthuses: "I just love the sexy sophistication. These are designers. They don't look like beginners at all. They have arrived."
Chris Hyndman (he and Steven Sabados, the former Designer Guys, have a new makeover show, So Chic, on the Life Network) chimes in: "I thought, 'You know what, is that Versace, is that Tom Ford, is Tom Ford working again?' "
"Or Dolce & Gabbana," offers Silvan.
"Is Tom Ford back in business?" says Hyndman, pressing on with his theme. "Because if you'd told me that was Tom Ford back in business, I would have said 'Yes.' This is not Canadian, this is worldwide."
"But the collection was sophisticated," his pal Steven Sabados offers. "It told a story. It stuck to a theme. It showed women being powerful and sexy. The walking cane, the hat. It was boom, boom, boom."
Hyndman agrees: "It was an empowering group of women. Empowered, sexy and not afraid to be a woman. To be strong."
Silvan continues, "And I think the important thing to add is that it's all of that -- and it's wearable. I wanted everything!"
Back comes Hyndman: "You could take this little shrug and wear it with one thing, another top and wear it with jeans, a fur coat, and mix it up. I loved it. It felt like a body of work rather than pieces. Those girls are geniuses, I am so proud of them!"
Silvan adds that the jury was excited by CINCYN right from the beginning: "We just all knew it in our guts."
"They are talented, talented talented," adds Sabados.
Hyndman gets the last word: "Powerful sexy. Not just sexy in a 16-year-old girl sexy. It's woman sexy."
More pragmatic is judge Dawn Thorpe, director of PR and marketing for Hugo Boss Canada: "It's such a huge commitment of time and money," she says, "and not every designer who applied [for New Labels] was always aware of these commitments. But you have these young people's lives in your hands, so to speak, and you don't want to deter them from moving forward. Not everybody starts out as Marc Jacobs!"
With CINCYN, Thorpe says it was clear they were equal parts innovation and business acumen. "They had money behind them, and that allowed their designs to come out."
"I think I was looking in particular for clothing that was accessible, that would sell," says the National Post's Susanne Hiller, who was a judge. "I think a lot of young designers have a tendency to be almost too arty, too over-the-top, too kitschy."
She praises CINCYN's marketability and teamwork. "They seemed to really be looking for as much constructive criticism as possible, and took all the tips and ideas we had. Our second meeting with them had completely incorporated the suggestions into the collection, and it really made a huge difference. They were asking us, what else can we do, what else can we do?"
Designer David Dixon, a judge, liked their clarity. "It was a very clear vision. And the quality was impeccable. The amount of effort that they put into constructing the garment and pattern-making. Speaking as a designer, it's those little details that make it stand out a little bit more, paying attention to those, and making sure that every corner of the outfit has something to look at."
Let the final word go to buyer-curator Andrew Sardone, of the Willow Grant Canadian Fashion Gallery, which carries only Canadian designers (including CINCYN), because, ultimately, whether the clothes will sell is what matters. "This collection is rack-ready," says Sardone. "We already have them on our racks, and it flies off. The fit, the fabrics, the price point -- it all just matches up really well."
- L'Oreal Fashion Week collections can be seen at www.lorealfashionweek.ca and for information on the TFI, go to www.fashionincubator.com.
- CINCYN is available in Toronto at EriAle boutique, Georgie Bolesworth and Willow Grant and in Woodbridge at Gardens of Healing. Nostalgy isn't in stores because this is its first collection. PierreJale has its line at The Bay's Canadian Designer section in Vancouver.
© National Post 2005
Photos by: Paultoogood Photography
