Last night’s Fantasme event was a pretty big success considering the last minute venue change from The Darling Foundry to SAT on St-Laurent. It was perhaps the best congregation of stylish Montrealers that I’ve ever witnessed in my life. A true street style photographer’s wet dream.

The mash up of the 80s trends with strong shoulders, boyfriend jackets teamed with mini dresses, strappy booties galore, and several men dressed in high heels and skinny jeans and rockin’ the casbah. I envied them as even I wouldn’t be able to walk in their fabulous shoes.

Where have you guys been hiding all this time??

I apologize for the lack of photos, I’m not exactly papparazzi skilled.

Fantasme is a collaboration between Andrew Ly and Melissa Matos, both a fashion designer and a jewelry designer respectively. Conceptually, it was a multi sensorial experience they wanted to project to the audience with video and audio projections and of course, a fashion show. It is their first show collaboration but they both have shared the stylist scene working for various local publications.

When asked about Ly’s ideas behind his collection, he had stated about the “complexity of simplicity”, where garments were stripped to their very essentials – such as a jacket only joined at the arms and not the shoulders, or leggings represented by strappy, stretchy bandages around the legs, as well as the geometry of garments such as an architectural caged skirt.

Matos’ collection was created in conjunction to her jewelry designs for PowerHaus, although it was the first time creating a clothing collection, she too made allusions to the semblance of garments as coiled pearls were wrapped around the arms to create a sleeve effect. She described the soft flowy see-through tops as armor that people wear, separating their self with the world.

But what about commercial purposes?

Ly’s response was that any fashion creation has a commercial purpose in the sense that it can be sold to those who are interested in buying. If there is a demand, they’d be more than happy to provide. Imran Amed, chief editor of The Business of Fashion, was in attendance and he had wondered during the presentation as to why would they show a fashion collection outside of season. Matos responds in true Montreal spirit: why not? Why not show a fashion show out of the season, instead of designated fashion weeks? As most natives know, Montreal follows its own creative beat.

We’re not expecting mass production here, this is still a showcasing event of concepts and ideas, and Fantasme fulfilled its purpose that night.

I had contributed with Business of Fashion on a few occasions, and was delighted to meet Imran in person. We chatted for a bit about his “Canadian tour”, as well of an upcoming project concerning BoF. While seated and waiting for the show to start, I had realized I sat next to Rad Hourani, whom I’ve interviewed through email for BoF and had yet to meet him in person. Exciting! Imran caught up with him and chatted about his upcoming show in New York. I had the opportunity to squeeze in a couple of curious questions like how he came to collaborate with Tommy Ton, of Jak and Jil Blog, which apparently they’ve known each other a few years and that they happened to bump into one another at a show. Small world! He also spoke about his admiration for Cathy Horyn of The NY Times and Suzy Menkes of IHT as how these women really knew fashion and know how to write about it. My idols. I felt incredibly lucky that night to have met both of them.

Other guests naturally included Canadian fashion editors from Flare, Loulou, Fashion, and The Gazette, and some local fashion designers like Denis Gagnon and Yso, whom I wasn’t sure if it was really him (was later confirmed on Twitter) and he had this amazing sparkly (sequined?) white jacket and the smoothest skin ever. Amazing.

Image credits: me! and Melissa Matos

Introducing Business of Fashion‘s first ever video interview with London designer Giles Deacon. To be honest, I’m quite excited for BoF, it’s a great experience to contribute to such a well-respected site and I can only hope for bigger and better things. Not to mention that I’m always deeply honored to be part of the team even if my contributions are rare gems

Here’s the teaser trailer below:

You can read “NRDC | Setting Its Sights On Canada”

The article is probably a little deja vu since I’ve covered the subject in a couple of posts, but the BoF isn’t Canadian-centric, and is read from practically all corners of the globe (it sounds so wordly, but the internet feels so small and close to home!).

I’ve been reading BoF daily for almost a year as I accidentally stumbled upon it while doing some research on fashion business. It gave me a first hand look at the professional world of business in fashion and I’ve been hooked ever since. It also gave me a wider perspective to look beyond the style sections of the newspaper, and dig in further into retail and manufacturing when reading newspapers. And so I’m really honored to be able to contribute to Business of Fashion.

Speaking of contributions…

If you’re interested in men’s couture (or made-to-measure), I’ve also been organizing the content for Pellegrino Castronovo‘s monthly newsletter. I have to say it’s really been a great learning experience to meet with the staff and learning more about fabrics and bespoke clothing. So if you’re interested in signing up, go ahead it’s free and painless

• Gloss Magazine - which I used to write for (is it too hopeful of me to say that perhaps Mr. Amed or Ms. La Ferla saw my blog and that I wrote for them?)
• Fashion156.com – in which Susie Bubble regularly contributes…on a side note I got contacted by them but had to turn them down.
• Unvogue.com – Well-talked about by Malcolm Sirrah on his blog Cut, Sew & Blog/Change
• Glam.com – I think anyone who owns a fashion blog or site has been contacted by them
• Iconique – my first fashion webzine experience, gorgeous as always
• Net-a-porter - the famed luxury website where you can buy RTW

If you’ve bared with me since the early days of this blog, I’ve rarely plugged myself in other media besides Gloss Magazine, probably because I’m perhaps a little too modest to mention. I’ve been contacted by an array of people including budding new designers (local and national), writing for fashion companies, invited to fashion events and even (heartbreakingly) missed an opportunity to be interviewed by the BBC….THE BBC. Yes, I had to kick my own behind for missing out on that one.

I find this is such an exciting time to write for a fashion webzine or blog as they are gaining more and more media attention from, well, traditional and online media. That somehow, in this huge network of fashion sites, any time one of our “own” is selected to be covered by the big media groups or picked up by major sites, I find it such an honor and happy for others who get to shine and recognized for what they do.

So I just wanted to say a huge congratulations to everyone who really work in keeping the fashion buzz online alive

Repeating their offenses from Christian Louboutin to most recently Balenciaga. The pair in question came into light at the Business of Fashion blog where the sporty multi-colored pump has been grossly and obviously copied by Steve Madden. Not only that, those lacy peep toe, construction boot pumps they call “Bombb Nat Nubuck” are also a knock off of Balenciaga’s Fall 2007 line. Perhaps the sales won’t mean much significance to Balenciaga’s financial portfolio, but designers need to protect their designs from profiteering companies like Steve Madden. Even now there is barely a dent or law that cracks down much on counterfeiting, much less crack down on companies who blatantly parade these copies around proudly with their own names stamped on it as if they were geniuses. And yet, they are. Because fashion is perhaps one of the few places where this sort of plagiarism can go unpunished no matter how big the elephant in the room is.

Funny how Steve Madden is expanding to a store within the Eaton Centre soon. I used to like them for making some cute shoes, but now, like Nine West, they’re not original enough to make their own designs and resort to copying for the sake of sales. A shame.

The predicament is typical and expected though. People don’t want, or can’t afford, to drop $500-$1000 on a single pair of shoes, even I haven’t taken the plunge yet to get shoes for that price. More importantly though, I put an emphasis on durability, I’m pretty rough on my shoes as I can get them scuffed quite easily, and prancing around in heels all day is a painful venture. Perhaps I should take heed of my cousin’s advice and start looking at Naturalizer shoes for comfort and classic styles. Growing old or growing wiser?

Above is the Steve Madden’s Balenciaga peep toe boot pump (wow, we gotta find a better name for this…), and I have to admit it’s a hot shoe I’d love to sport myself – but I don’t buy knock offs (and they never carry my size anyway).

Image credit: Steven Madden

Although my little blog has just started 3 months ago, it’s been a highly honourable time for me that some fellow bloggers have given me a shout out for liking my blog or my comments. This comes as a delightful surprise, so forgive me if I sound too humble, I’m sort of shy about these things!

But I really must thank The Business of Fashion and My Look Book for acknowledging my little presence in this big blogosphere!

As I’ve mentioned on my very first post about BoF, it’s a highly informative and smartly written blog on the fashion industry, Mr. Imran is also a Montreal native

And My Look Book was stumbled upon by pure accident on Facebook and I really liked how much love and effort has gone into the Cheap vs. Steep looks in such a whimsical manner. It’s geared more towards Canadian shoppers so you’ll be able to book the look whether offline or online. This saves me a lot of time comparing prices!

Thank you both, it really means a lot!

Also, I’d like to mention and add another blog to the Blogroll to which I find is such an inspirational blog of a fashion designer making a difference in the fashion industry from the inside. Cut, Sew & Blog will give you a good look at Malcolm Harris’ life as a genuine and positive inspiration in a cutthroat industry. Also look for his close friend Andre J (who has appeared on the cover of French Vogue!!) for his unique and positively amazing personality.

And thank you fellow readers in reading my blog, whether it’s to find information or to leave a comment, I hope it’s helped you thus far! It’s just passed 4000 visits and as a first timer, I say that’s rather fantastique

He’s only 25 and has already garnered praised and comparisons to high profiled designers. Rad Hourani has made heads turn this past Spring/Summer 2008 during Paris Fashion Week with his unisex collection, and has been nominated as one of Style.com‘s Top Ten New Designers. He’s a self-taught Montreal stylist and has had his first collection bought by chain fashion giant Holt Renfrew (to which now I have to check out). He’s also been featured in the Montreal Gazette and most recently interviewed by The Business of Fashion about his vision and his upcoming show for New York Fashion Week Fall 2008. A look at his website and you can see that he is no ordinary stylist turned designer, as he is just as much into his little short artsy films and black and white photographs.

We’ll be keeping an eye on this man!

For my own little 2 cents though, it seems Montreal designers have been caught with some sort of obsession with black and white…why is that??

Sadly, Montreal’s fashion industry seems to be stuck in a digital rut, where blogs are practically unheard of if you look across the leading Montreal news outlets. Even less pertaining to fashion. Most of the magazines and newspapers are owned by the same company, thus all websites are grouped under one roof. This can only mean that if the company cannot acknowledge updating themselves technology wise, all publications suffer the same fate.

Thus I bring you to the starting journey of a Montreal fashion blog winding itself up on the web and making use of the blog technologies.

I’ve put some some RSS feeds of some of the fashion blogs that I like to read on a regular basis, so far only one pertains to Montreal (and it’s not even about fashion!) since it’s the only one in English.

Créativité Montreal is a weekly online magazine on the latest design projects happening around the Montreal area. It touches base on architectural, interior and 3D object design. The articles are written by design enthusiast Sylvie Berkowicz, who hosted the now defunct design tv show “.d” on MusiMax.

The Business of Fashion is maintained by Imran Amed, part of the 360Fashion network. He offers his opinion of another side of the fashion industry we don’t hear often which is, of course, business. He posts regularly on the latest business ventures some companies take, from The Gap to Azzedine Alaïa, as well as my favorite topic of “Fashion 2.0″, the merging of technology and fashion.

Hilary Alexander of the The Daily Telegraph was someone whom Sylvie Berkowicz interviewed often for her show “.d” after fashion shows. Hilary has an incredible flair for the written word in describing a show. She’s absolutely my favorite fashion critic, though perhaps she’s not the most controversial. You can also see video reporting of the latest fashion show.

The Sartorialist is a photo fashion blog created by Scott Schuman. He rose to fame over the last year for having a keen eye for fashionable individuals on the streets of New York city. His simplistic photography skills have led him to contributing to Vogue, Style.com, GQ, and traveling abroad to the fashion capitals of Milan, Paris, London, Stockholm and recently Beijing. Once you start reading his blog, it’s hard to stop.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading what Dualité will bring to the Montreal, and hope the future will be bright for our fair Canadian city!