Fashion Week arrives in Toronto
It’s a busy week for fashion enthusiasts in Toronto, as the World Mastercard Fashion Week hits off on Oct. 20 to Oct. 25at the David Pecaut Square. Over 30,000 guests are expected to see emerging fashion designers present their work on the runway, along with more established brands such as Bustle, Matthew Gallagher, SOIA & KYO, Rudsak, and Pink Tartan.
The World Mastercard Fashion Week is all about supporting emerging designers who are working to establish their name in the industry.
“It is really great to see the next and greatest in design and to watch them grow. But they also need a stage to do that, and this is a start,” said Carolyn Quinn, director of IMG Fashion Events and Properties, the organization that produces Toronto Fashion Week.
In an industry highly dominated by well-known brands such as H&M, and Zara, it is difficult for new designers to have their work noticed by buyers – creating a not-so-positive environment for emerging designers.
In hopes of changing this, six designers will compete to have a solo show produced for the next fashion week, along with mentoring by industry professionals – not to mention a grand total of $30,000 for the winning designer.
“I think that there is a movement going on to propel Canadian fashion forward, that it feels that there is a real effort to change with things like the Mercedes Startup and the Joe Fresh fund, and seeing designers supporting other designers,” said Eliza Faulkner, one of the six finalists.
With up-and-coming designers come new ideas and prospects for the future of fashion. Designer Hayley Elsaesser will be showing pieces with simple line drawings of nude women, complete with hair where it naturally grows, surrounded by planets and stars. The collection is called Heavenly Bodies, which aims at representing women who divert from the pin-up girl image. “It’s about celebrating the female body in its more natural form. It’s a salute to feminism,” said Elsaesser. Fashion can be an empowering tool for women, and for designers like Esaesser, it’s important to use that tool as a way to celebrate feminism and women’s issues. As a way of expression, fashion can also be a way to step outside of the cultural norm, and push past societal boundaries through such an art form.
As well as making Fashion Week accessible to new and upcoming designers, Fashion Week has also been trying to become more accessible to the general public for viewing. Fashion Saturday, which was introduced last year, allows the public to purchase tickets to view the collections that have been shown throughout the week, outlining the highlights of the show. It is important for Canadian designers to be given the opportunity to share the runway with other established designers, as well as for Canadians to have access to the work of these designers; an initiative that the World Mastercard Fashion Week is dedicated to put forward.