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Toronto is a good-looking town, with no shortage of beautiful people in beautiful clothes. But only a few are bona fide head-turners: city characters who take fashion to the next level. We celebrate them with our second annual list of Toronto’s best dressed.
(Image: Craig Barritt/Getty Images Entertainment)
Yeah! We have nice asses.
—Canadian pop icon and newlywed Rufus Wainwright tells Vulture about his famously musical family’s resemblance to the von Trapps (full context: sister Martha had just remarked that the family looks good in lederhosen). The two Wainwrights were at a New York screening of Sing Me the Songs that Say I Love You, a concert film documenting their tribute last year to their mother, the late and very great Kate McGarrigle. [Vulture]
Nicholas Campbell (centre) and Marc Bendavid, who play various characters in the show, including a witness to the Martian invasion and a reporter who dies in the attack
The ultra-eclectic chamber orchestra known as The Art of Time Ensemble is always looking for ways to break through the stuffiness and predictability of classical music. To accomplish this, it has done things like arrange and perform an orchestral version of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album and collaborate onstage with Michael Ondaatje, R. H. Thomson, dancer Peggy Baker and singer Steven Page (with whom they also recorded an album of songs by Leonard Cohen, Radiohead, Rufus Wainwright and others). But the Ensemble’s obsessively faithful recreation of The War of the Worlds, Orson Welles’ notoriously fake 1938 radio broadcast about Martians invading rural New Jersey, is its most elaborate project yet.
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Amid the cocktail swilling and celebrity gawking, eating can be an afterthought during TIFF. Good news: there are plenty of excellent restaurants that let you do all three. Here, the glitziest places to dine, drink, and catch starlets cheating on their diets.
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(Image: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images Entertainment)
After getting engaged back in 2010, Toronto’s Annex-dwelling, star-powered couple Rufus Wainwright and Jorn Weisbrodt are finally tying the knot tomorrow night with a 250-person bash in Montauk, New York, featuring celebrity guests Princess Leia Carrie Fisher and Yoko Ono, among others. The event is (understandably) being kept hush-hush, but details have, of course, managed to emerge anyway: the duo will reportedly marry in a ceremony at the home of Wainwright’s father, Grammy-winning singer Loudon Wainwright III, then jump into the sea for a quick dip before heading to Shagwong Restaurant, where Wainwright is expected to perform (there is no formal dress code, which makes deciding what to wear for the nuptials–swimming–partying lineup considerably easier). The rumour mill also has it that the pair is asking for funds to put toward their new aluminum Airstream trailer in lieu of traditional wedding gifts, which, if true, is awesome. [Toronto Star]
Anyone wondering where moneyed Toronto arts patrons were on Wednesday night should have checked the Four Seasons Centre, where the city’s old guard convened for the National Ballet of Canada’s 60th-anniversary Diamond Gala. Outside the centre, models posed in the sweltering heat, fanned by custom-designed tutus as white-haired doyennes, tuxedoed power brokers and a handful of devil-may-care party-goers in canvas shorts walked the red carpet. Inside, guests were treated to performances by the company (including the famously breast- and butt-heavy pas de deux from the ’90s contemporary ballet Herman Scherman)—although some members, like principal dancer Jillian Vanstone and first soloist McGee Maddox, were spotted in the audience, enjoying a night off.
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Just last week, at Luminato, Jake Gyllenhaal took in the Rufus Wainwright concert at David Pecaut Square, hanging out with gay power couple Jorn Weisbrodt and Wainwright before bailing on the after-party. That one chat proved to be too little, however, as Gyllenhaal was spotted last night on the Harbord Room’s patio, drinking with the duo. Our question is, did he eat the city’s most delicious burger?
(Images: Harbord Room, gigglesyee; Jake Gyllenhaal, Prince of Persia)
Jake G. and K’naan at Terroni (Image: Twitter)
Jake Gyllenhaal is still in town filming An Enemy, and he spent last night as a VIP at Rufus Wainwright’s Luminato concert at David Pecaut Square. Gyllenhaal was spotted hanging out with two blonde women in the VIP tent, alongside Jorn Weisbrodt, K’naan and other guests. It’s not typical for power couple Weisbrodt and Wainwright to be under a tent with heartthrob Gyllenhaal in a public space in downtown Toronto, so we imagine there are many people this morning who wish they hadn’t gone to bed early last night. Gyllenhaal and K’naan enjoyed a dinner at Terroni before the show, but not until after they waited 15 minutes in line before getting a table.
Einstein on the Beach (Image: courtesy of Luminato)
Luminato begins this Friday, and it can be a bit of a whirlwind. Everything from a Philip Glass opera about Einstein’s life to a gigantic food festival are on the card from June 8 to June 17, so both mind and body will be nourished. There’s even a huge cast of international guests coming through Toronto, like New York artist Terence Koh and New Yorker editor Deborah Treisman. But there’s so much to do, and we couldn’t possibly see everything, so we’ve created an easy-to-use guide that lists all of Luminato’s best bets.
1. LUMINATO
Art, theatre, film, dance, books and music—the arts are everywhere in the city this weekend. Clearly, Luminato has arrived. On our radar: Friday’s First Night concert featuring rapper K’Naan; Sunday’s Rufus to the Max program, a two-parter that includes a one-hour tribute to Rufus Wainwright and a concert with the man himself; 1000 Tastes of Toronto, a President’s Choice–sponsored food extravaganza; a late-night performance of Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony by the TSO; and the New Yorker lit series, which features talks and panels by author Annie Proulx, theatre critic Hilton Als and food critics Calvin Trillin and Adam Gopnik. June 8–17. Various prices. 416-368-3100, luminato.com.
Jorn Weisbrodt and Rufus Wainwright (Image: Jemal Countess/Getty Images Entertainment)
Attention, gay men of Toronto hoping to steal Rufus Wainwright away from his long-time fiancé, Jorn Weisbrodt: the pair has officially set a date—August 23, 2012. They’ll be getting married in Montauk, Long Island. Reportedly, these details were confirmed via a video sent out to friends showing Wainwright scrawling the wedding info into sand. We can only assume the upcoming nuptials mean Wainwright will retire the song “Instant Pleasure” from his repertoire.
Rufus Wainwright and Sean Lennon joined the likes of Jeff Mangum and Talib Kweli in lending their voices to the Occupy Wall Street movement this week. The two famous offspring performed an acoustic version of Madonna’s “Material Girl,” accompanied by several guitars and an accordion player (which makes this even more awesome). Perhaps Lennon was inspired by his mother, Yoko Ono, who tweeted in support of Occupy Wall Street earlier this month: “I love #OccupyWallStreet As John said, ‘One hero cannot do it. Each one of us has to be heroes.’ And you are. Thank you. love yoko.”
1. LG FASHION WEEK
Some of the city’s more fashionable citizens have been accumulating this year behind Roy Thomson Hall to check out what’ll be big next spring from the likes of Pink Tartan, Bustle, Cynthia Rowley and the eminently wearable Joe Fresh. The most high-style week of the year (or one of two, at least) wraps up on Friday with shows by David Dixon and Denis Gagnon. To October 21. Various prices. David Pecaut Square (formerly Metro Square), King St. W. between John and Simcoe streets, lgfashionweek.ca.
2. INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF AUTHORS
Once again it’s storytime for grownups (and very precocious children) at Harbourfront. Big-name writers like Michael Ondaatje, Miriam Toews, Johanna Skibsrud and Douglas Coupland will be taking part in panels, book signings and, most importantly, readings at this 12-day literary fest. To October 30. $10-$35. Harbourfront Centre, 235 Queens Quay W., 416-973-4000, readings.org.
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The Luminato Festival has announced today that its new artistic director is Jorn Weisbrodt, partner of Canadian musician Rufus Wainwright and patron of the arts. Weisbrodt, 38, will succeed Chris Lorway. He won the position after a far-reaching search and will begin his new position in January after five years as the director of Long Island’s The Watermill Center. Weisbrodt boasts an impressive resume, having worked with arts organizations all over the world—La Scala in Milan, the Bolshoi Theatre in Russia and Manchester International Festival to name a few—but apparently he is particularly keen on working in Toronto: “I’m very excited about working with Luminato and living in Toronto, because it’s clear this is a festival that wants to work with the world’s best artists on exciting new projects,” Weisbrodt told the Star.
Alicia Keys, Ngozi Paul and K'naan (Image: George Pimentel)
May 3, Rosewater Supper Club. After-hours at the Rosewater usually means loose-tied Bay Street types swirling grand cru and planning their next hostile takeover—not the conga-beating, boogying and boisterous boozing that broke out at the after-party for the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s Hope Rising concert. Supporters poured into the decadent downtown resto following a fundraising show at the Sony Centre, which featured Alicia Keys, Rufus Wainwright, K’naan and Jully Black. The party peaked when a corps of conga drummers started playing along to the backbeat of the DJ set, enticing even the suits to shake a tail feather. Up on the mezzanine, K’naan was too preoccupied with fending off a throng of female fans to hit the dance floor. At the concert he’d brought fans onstage to sing his anthem “Wavin’ Flag”; mercifully, no sloppy renditions were attempted in his honour at the after-party.
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