International media have come to Toronto to get a look at Canada’s fashion talent.
Toronto played host to L’Oreal Fashion Week in Nathan Phillips Square from Mar. 17 to Mar. 22.
This year, both local and international designers were given a venue to showcase their collections throughout 34 shows over the week. The Fashion Design Council of Canada (FDCC) produced the event.
Megan Loach is the communications coordinator for the FDCC. She said that this Canada’s fashion-season event
“What L’Oreal Fashion Week does in Toronto is create the venue and a gateway for the international media to come and have the opportunity to be exposed to over a hundred designers in the span of four days,” she said.
The theme of this year’s Fashion Week was Wear In The World, due to the fact that there was a more international presence at the shows.
Russian designer Max Chernitsov presented his collection of men’s and women’s wear at the beginning of the week and the graduating students from four fashion schools in Milan staged a collaborative show of their works.
Robin Kay is the president of the FDCC and the executive director of L’Oreal Fashion Week.
“The attention the FDCC has brought to fashion in Canada has bolstered our own runway and inspired new designer relations at home and abroad,” Kay said in a press release.
Loach says that Fashion Week is an important part of the local fashion industry, which, in turn, benefits the global fashion industry. She says that fashion in Toronto is not just an art; it’s a business.
“It’s all towards the purpose of creating sales for these designers and expanding the market, as well as the fashion industry in general,” she said.
Without the shows, designers, especially those new to the business, would have a much more difficult time getting their work to the people. They rely on the media to promote them and their collections and they rely on the buyers to put their designs into the stores.
By participating in Fashion Week, the media and buyers can see dozens of shows in a short amount of time. Media and buyers from all over the world, including Germany, Japan, Sweden, Italy and France, attended the week’s shows.
“Fashion weeks in general are … place(s) for media and buyers to interact with designers and also preview all of these lines for sale,” Loach said.
“The mandate (of Fashion Week),” she said “is to encourage not only Canadian designers but also the business of the fashion industry in Canada, which includes having international content to open up the Canadian markets for apparel in general.”