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On May 4th Toronto’s fashion savvy gathered at the Royal Ontario Museum in celebration of the Toronto Fashion Incubator’s 25th anniversary. Since the organization was developed it has continuously helped to breed some of Canada’s most well know and sought after designers like veteran David Dixon. The goal of the Incubator is to help designers launch or grow their business through their rigorous 6 month national competition. This brings designers expose, mentorship and the chance to present their collection on a known runway, a concept copied by 33 cities over the last 25 years. “We’re looking for people who are serious about starting and launching a fashion business,” says Susan Langdon, who now serves as gala chair and judge and donated a $25,000 grand prize to go along with a feature in Flare Magazine and a design studio space at TFI headquarters sponsored by TNT boutique that was awarded to the top winner. After the lengthly deliberation that went on both during and after the event the judges awarded the grand prize to Edmonton’s Sid Neigum who is known for his minimalist unisex designs  I loved his fall 2012 collection and I cannot wait to see his growth and the influence this competition has had on his designs this coming season at Toronto Fashion Week. Photography by George Pimentel

On May 4th Toronto’s fashion savvy gathered at the Royal Ontario Museum in celebration of the Toronto Fashion Incubator’s 25th anniversary. Since the organization was developed it has continuously helped to breed some of Canada’s most well know and sought after designers like veteran David Dixon. The goal of the Incubator is to help designers launch or grow their business through their rigorous 6 month national competition. This brings designers expose, mentorship and the chance to present their collection on a known runway, a concept copied by 33 cities over the last 25 years. “We’re looking for people who are serious about starting and launching a fashion business,” says Susan Langdon, who now serves as gala chair and judge and donated a $25,000 grand prize to go along with a feature in Flare Magazine and a design studio space at TFI headquarters sponsored by TNT boutique that was awarded to the top winner.

After the lengthly deliberation that went on both during and after the event the judges awarded the grand prize to Edmonton’s Sid Neigum who is known for his minimalist unisex designs 

I loved his fall 2012 collection and I cannot wait to see his growth and the influence this competition has had on his designs this coming season at Toronto Fashion Week.

Photography by George Pimentel


Red Carpet Style: Here is my latest obsession, Chloe Moretz at a screening of her newest flick ‘Hick’ at the Crosby Street Hotel where she wore an opulent Dolce & Gabbana number and nude Jimmy Choo ‘Lance’ sandals.  I absolutely love the puffy short sleeves and figure hugging ruching with the strappy sandals as it all makes for an adorable spring look.  

Red Carpet Style: Here is my latest obsession, Chloe Moretz at a screening of her newest flick ‘Hick’ at the Crosby Street Hotel where she wore an opulent Dolce & Gabbana number and nude Jimmy Choo ‘Lance’ sandals. 

I absolutely love the puffy short sleeves and figure hugging ruching with the strappy sandals as it all makes for an adorable spring look.  

Red Carpet Style: This week starlet Scarlett Johansson was honoured with her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame where she wore a ladylike number from Preen’s fall 2012 collection. The dress was paired with red Christian Louboutin platform peep-toes and  Bulgari studded earrings. The retro flipped up-do complimented the dress perfectly and her fresh dewy makeup with a punchy red lip helped pull together the final look. 

Red Carpet Style: This week starlet Scarlett Johansson was honoured with her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame where she wore a ladylike number from Preen’s fall 2012 collection. The dress was paired with red Christian Louboutin platform peep-toes and  Bulgari studded earrings. The retro flipped up-do complimented the dress perfectly and her fresh dewy makeup with a punchy red lip helped pull together the final look. 

Thursday night Canada’s own Flare Magazine teamed up with GUESS to throw an exclusive party in celebration of the brands 30th anniversary. The event itself was held at the Queen Street West GUESS store in downtown Toronto where the Lotus Leaf Communications team made sure that everyone was in attendance from bloggers like myself to pro shopaholics and local celebrity faces. My friend Amelia and myself had a great time as the event was fun, lively and had an amazing turnout. Guests sipped on champagne, wine and cocktails that kept flowing as hors d’œuvre’s made their rounds. Music was courtesy of New York based DJ Brendan Fallis and guests were treated to a presentation of the clothes on adorable dolled up models oozing retro charm. Makeup, accessories, earphones and gift cards were given away while purchases were accompanied by gifts including OPI, Smashbox and GUESS products. In addition, 10% of proceeds went towards Canada’s Save the Children foundation. When the evening came to a close the party did not stop there but rather move a few doors down to Cube nightclub for the after party. As previously mention this year marks the 30th anniversary for GUESS and they have in turn released the limited edition capsule collection featuring their most iconic and memorable looks from the past 30 years. The campaign for the collection features the legendary Claudia Schiffer who originally modelled for the brand back in 1989 (the year I was BORN) at 19 years old and now in the same iconic poses 23 years later at 41 and is seemingly ageless. The images were photographed by Ellen Von Unwerth who has also been the photographer on all six campaigns featuring Schiffer. Claudia and Ellen are clearly the perfect choice for this anniversary GUESS campaign in the eyes of GUESS CEO Paul Marciano as he previously stated to WWD, “[Schiffer] was a turning point of GUESS, she was a turning point of Ellen’s career, GUESS was a turning point of a life for Claudia.” The 15-piece collection was inspired by Schiffer and the other former GUESS girls which includes the most adorable daisy capri pants as modelled by Schiffer, jeans with a cut off waist band as seen on Adriana Lima and wide-neck T-shirts featuring images of Line Gost and Anna Nicole Smith.   The collection is available at GUESS stores, Macy’s and at guess1981.com (Photos courtesy of Lotus Leaf Communications)

Thursday night Canada’s own Flare Magazine teamed up with GUESS to throw an exclusive party in celebration of the brands 30th anniversary. The event itself was held at the Queen Street West GUESS store in downtown Toronto where the Lotus Leaf Communications team made sure that everyone was in attendance from bloggers like myself to pro shopaholics and local celebrity faces. My friend Amelia and myself had a great time as the event was fun, lively and had an amazing turnout. Guests sipped on champagne, wine and cocktails that kept flowing as hors d’œuvre’s made their rounds. Music was courtesy of New York based DJ Brendan Fallis and guests were treated to a presentation of the clothes on adorable dolled up models oozing retro charm. Makeup, accessories, earphones and gift cards were given away while purchases were accompanied by gifts including OPI, Smashbox and GUESS products. In addition, 10% of proceeds went towards Canada’s Save the Children foundation. When the evening came to a close the party did not stop there but rather move a few doors down to Cube nightclub for the after party.

As previously mention this year marks the 30th anniversary for GUESS and they have in turn released the limited edition capsule collection featuring their most iconic and memorable looks from the past 30 years. The campaign for the collection features the legendary Claudia Schiffer who originally modelled for the brand back in 1989 (the year I was BORN) at 19 years old and now in the same iconic poses 23 years later at 41 and is seemingly ageless. The images were photographed by Ellen Von Unwerth who has also been the photographer on all six campaigns featuring Schiffer. Claudia and Ellen are clearly the perfect choice for this anniversary GUESS campaign in the eyes of GUESS CEO Paul Marciano as he previously stated to WWD, “[Schiffer] was a turning point of GUESS, she was a turning point of Ellen’s career, GUESS was a turning point of a life for Claudia.” The 15-piece collection was inspired by Schiffer and the other former GUESS girls which includes the most adorable daisy capri pants as modelled by Schiffer, jeans with a cut off waist band as seen on Adriana Lima and wide-neck T-shirts featuring images of Line Gost and Anna Nicole Smith.  

The collection is available at GUESS stores, Macy’s and at guess1981.com

(Photos courtesy of Lotus Leaf Communications)

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Fashion Against Aids is a campaign from H&M aimed to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS amongst todays youth. Since the launch of the campaign, H&M has raised over $6.5 million that has been divided between four different organizations that aid in the prevention of HIV/AIDS by educating and informing. 

To get involved and help H&M in their fight you can do either of the following:

You can purchase pieces from H&M’s Fashion Against AIDS summer 2012 collection with 25% of purchases going towards these organizations. The collection is a fun mix of tribal prints found on crop tops, bikini’s, body con dresses and more. 

and/or

You can try something that may just be even more fun than shopping. Simply pull out your phone, grab someone and take a picture of yourself kissing them. This can be on the cheek, a various body part or smack dab on the lips. Head on over to FashionAgainstAids.com and upload your photo. H&M will donate $1 to the campaign for every photo so get your mack on.

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  • Flare Magazine
  • April 2012
  • Model: Wei and DJ
  • Photographer: Chris Nicholls
  • Stylist: Elizabeth Cabral

Print, on print on print and on point aesthetically pleasing clashing. I absolutely die every time I see those Oscar de la Renta and Alexander Wang pumps and they were beautifully paired with architectural designs from the likes of Jil Sander, Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney. Overall extremely striking and everything we have come to expect from an editorial produced by Flare.