In their third blog entry as guest bloggers for the Post, Kirk Pickersgill and Stephen Wong, the brain trust behind Greta Constantine, leave New York City at the end of fashion week, but not before doing some scouting and shopping in the Big Apple. Proving that Torontonians are everywhere, the pair ran into Andrea Lenczner and Christie Smythe, the powerhouses behind clothing label Smythe (a favourite of Blake Lively) at Barneys.
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Greta Constantine designers visit New York but miss the TTC
Greta Constantine designers search for American interest in menswear line
The second instalment of their blog series for the National Post finds Toronto designers Kirk Pickersgill and Stephen Wong of Greta Constantine in the midst of New York fashion week. First on their agenda is a stop at a Tribeca Starbucks, as part of the process of “assimilating into American culture.” (Perhaps the trek to the Times Square Tim Hortons was too far.) Next, the two discussed The City and the spectacularly petulant cattiness of Olivia Palermo and Erin Kaplan (two of The City’s main “cast members”) while shopping at Marc by Marc Jacobs and the Alexander McQueen store.
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HBC not making a penny on Olympic mitten sales
Proceeds from mittens go to Canadian athletes (Photo by Michael Francis McCarthy)
Today’s Olympic Mitten Update comes from Time, which is a little late to the story, considering there are only three days left in the Games. Heck, even Oprah scooped them.
HBC’s CEO, Jeffery Sherman, tells Time that 3.5 million pairs have been sold since they went on sale in October—1.5 million of them were sold this month—and that the company doesn’t make a penny off the sales. Sherman says that the proceeds from the mittens ($12 million so far) go to the Canadian Olympic Committee to fund athletes’ programs. Sherman says he doesn’t regret not getting a piece of the profits and that “we entered this to do the right thing.” Besides, the hype surrounding the accessory has led to increased traffic in the stores and overall sales.
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Mark Fast’s fall show features plus-sized models, gets thumbs-up from British PM’s wife
Crystal Renn in the Mark Fast show (Photo via Style.com)
Winnipeg-bred and Toronto-schooled designer Mark Fast got top marks for his fall collection during London fashion week over the weekend—especially when he opted to dress plus-sized models in his clingy knitwear for the second time. Fast’s stylist famously quit last season, when Fast insisted on casting larger girls in his show.
Critics praised Fast for hiring models like size 16 Crystal Renn, who recently became a household name after appearing in a spread in December’s V magazine. There was also buzz in the front row as Sarah Brown, the wife of the British prime minister, made sure that she didn’t miss one of her favourite up-and-coming designers. As AFP reports, Fast’s was one of the only shows during fashion week with a diverse model lineup.
As for the actual collection, Fast has branched out from his signature blended yarn dresses with the addition of flowing dresses, suede skirts and jackets—a wise move to show that he can do more than body-conscious knit mini-dresses.
Jeanne Beker trades N.Y. fashion week for Vancouver 2010, blogs about it
Norway's clownish curling pants (Photo by Kenny Louie)
Jeanne Beker swapped her Fashion Television mic for an Olympic torch in Vancouver—a far cry from her regular rounds backstage and in the front row at international fashion weeks. Beker has been getting her bearings as Olympic fashion reporter while pint-sized blog pundit Tavi Gevinson takes the reins temporarily during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York, a gig Beker has already underlined as a one-time deal.
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Americans win Olympic mittens by perpetuating Canadian stereotypes
The coveted mittens (Photo by Michael Francis McCarthy)
Today’s Olympic Mitten Update comes in the form of an on-line contest in which readers submit what they know about Canada in an attempt to win a pair. And judging from the entries, most of their knowledge comes from watching Molson Canadian commercials (in fact, one entrant quotes from the “I Am” commercial).
B.C.-based greeting card designer Fiona Richards announced on her company blog that she will give a pair of the coveted item to the person who gives her the best bit of trivia about the host country (no mention of what kind of trivia she’s looking for).
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Brits think Canada is 10th most attractive country
Jessica Stam on the cover of Vogue Korea
Tenth? We’ll take it. Five thousand Brits were surveyed in an on-line poll to rank the most attractive people in the world, and Canucks rounded out the top 10. In first place are Americans, followed by Brazilians, Spaniards and Australians.
Other countries that outranked us include Sweden, England, India and France, but there are easy explanations for this. The participants probably think everyone in the U.S. looks like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (obviously they haven’t seen People of Walmart). Brazil, Spain, France and Sweden are where supermodels are born, and Australians keep fit by surfing and playing volleyball in bikinis year-round. Also, India’s Bollywood industry probably made them think it’s a country of Aishwarya Rais. (And, of course, it’s not surprising that Brits would consider themselves not too shabby in the looks department.)
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Coco Rocha compares treatment of models to child labour
Although model Coco Rocha has always been vocal about the size issue in the modeling industry, the 21-year-old Toronto native blogged her 883-word “uncensored point of view” yesterday after landing on the cover of the New York Daily News for, laughably, being too fat, which was followed by a flurry of outraged media coverage.
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Frustrated with the TTC? Blame it on the uniforms
Drab fab (Photo by Richard Eriksson)
Torontonians would agree that there are a lot of problems facing the TTC today. There’s the scandal-ridden commissioner, perpetual delays and napping attendants, to name a few, but there’s another pressing issue the TTC must deal with: the uniforms.
The current outfits, a mixture of drab grey, blue and maroon rolled out in 1994, have bad feng shui and are unflattering, according to the Toronto Sun, making workers “look pasty and puffy, especially if they work in a tunnel all day.” It’s even been suggested that the uniforms could be part of why so many TTC operators report post-traumatic stress disorder and why some of the city views the union with such contempt.
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Teen blogger’s gig on Fashion Television a one-time thing
While teen blogging sensation and fashion week darling Tavi Gevinson may have irked journalists by sitting in the front row of the Dior haute couture show, the producers at Fashion Television saw fit to harness her popularity by giving her a reporting gig during New York fashion week while Jeanne Beker covers the Olympics.
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Model Coco Rocha lands NY Daily News cover…for being fat
Today's cover of the Daily News
The cover of today’s New York Daily News features an image of Canadian model Coco Rocha with the headline “Is she too fat to be [sic] runway model?” (We checked our calendars, and no, it’s not April 1.) The article refers to a New York Times piece published yesterday in which Rocha, who walked in the Diane Von Furstenberg show over the weekend, says she’s booking fewer jobs nowadays because designers think she’s not thin enough.
It’s fashion week season around the world, and the debate over extremely thin models has heated up. In Toronto, the National Eating Disorder Information Centre recently appointed a streetcar shelter with a trash slot into which women can deposit their fashion magazines; above the slot are the words “Shed your weight problem here.”
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Here’s The Situation: Jersey Shore comes to Toronto to find models for an upcoming photo shoot
Situation comedy: MTV wants to shoot the Jersey Shore star with some Toronto ladies (Photo by MTV)
Get those poufs and liquid tanners ready, because The Situation is in Hogtown, and he’s looking for some high-class guidettes. An open casting call for a photo shoot with the Jersey Shore star will take place tomorrow between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. at The Social. Organizers are looking for women between the ages of 18 and 25 who are willing to bring a swimsuit down to Queen West for test shots. Chosen ladies will be scheduled for a one-day photo shoot later in the month. The pay is a surprisingly decent $150 per hour.
• Casting call for photo shoot with ‘The Situation’ MTV’s Jersey Shore [Craigslist]
Sarah Jessica Parker is coming to Toronto
SJP in Halston on the Sex and the City 2 poster
The Sex and the City star and newly minted president and chief creative officer of fashion label Halston is packing her bags for a trip to Toronto next month for a party at The Bay, so reports Shinan Govani. Sarah Jessica Parker will be acting as a Halston exec when she visits The Room, the new luxury section at the Yonge and Queen location.
Not surprisingly, Carrie Bradshaw’s alter ego is also front and centre in the classic American label’s new ads—timed to come out just in time for the release of the Sex and the City movie sequel—and she also sports some of the clothes in the movie itself. (A floaty white Halston dress, for instance, that’s featured prominently in the trailer.) Cross, meet promotion.
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Jeremy Laing visited the Vogue office today
From Jeremy Laing's spring 2010 collection (Photo via Jeremylaing.com)
Toronto designer Jeremy Laing made a trip to the Vogue offices today, giving the editors a preview of his fall 2010 collection, which he will present tomorrow evening during New York fashion week.
While it’s not clear whether Anna Wintour saw the pieces, Florence Kane blogged about how much the editors loved them.
If Jeremy Laing didn’t need his savage new fur pieces for his presentation this Friday evening at Milk Studios, we’d have ripped them off the rack when he came in to preview his latest collection at the Vogue offices today, and worn them to all the shows this week.
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The woman who brought down Adam Giambrone wants to be a model
A photo Kristen Lucas sent to Drink the Glitter (Photo via Drink the Glitter)
It was down to us and Canadian Grocer in terms of media outlets that hadn’t mentioned the Adam Giambrone sex scandal. But after Kristen Lucas, the 20-year-old whose secret relationship with the former mayoral candidate has caused him to drop out of the race, sent her glamour shots (we use the term glamour liberally) to celebrity gossip blog Drink the Glitter yesterday, we’re hopping on the Giambrone media gravy train based on the model technicality.
“She didn’t want ugly pictures of her out there…she wanted good pictures,” David Robert from Drink the Glitter told the National Post regarding the MySpace-esque photos she submitted to the blog. But despite all the media attention, which included news crews knocking on her door as she hid in her house, Robert says Lucas still wants to be famous: “She wants to be a model. She wants to be an actress.”
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