The Globe and Mail asks… Are You the most Stylish Canadian? Which is cute, and kind of confusing. I would rather nominate someone else – I know perfectly well I am not the most stylish Canadian. I think the girls at TorontoStreetFashion.com should submit their pictures – they’re not only incredibly stylish, they know how to pose. I’m obviously biased towards bloggers but I think my newly discovered Canadian fashion blogger do this don’t could be a contender too.

Confusing how? Where to start. First of all comes the difficult task of explaining to Canadians what “stylish” means. You may have noticed that I get all fascinated with the fluctuating definitions of fashion words, but after reading the judge’s conversation I am beyond confused (click on Ask the Judges). Actually, that is usually the way I feel after reading the Globe’s style section… especially anything by Leah McLaren whose column seems to cover style in a way that I can’t relate to at all.

The most mystifying part of the contest is the Test Your Style Savvy. I love internet tests as much as the next blogger, but this test failed to evaluate my style savviness in any understandable way.

Various pictures of style icons are juxtaposed beside a “hit or miss” poll. Is anyone in their right mind voting Katherine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, or Diana Princess of Wales as unstylish? The sole Canadian content is Pierre Elliot Trudeau (23% voted his style as a miss). According to Globe Pollsters, the most unstylish style icons are Oscar Wilde at 44% miss, the Duke of Windsor at 36% miss, and Coco Chanel at 37% miss (huh?).

Why are all of these people dead and only one of them Canadian? The poll lead me right back to the beginning without giving me any indication of my relative Style Savvy. It’s nice to see a newspaper trying for interactivity, but I have to rate this poll a miss.

Whether the search for the most stylish Canadian is successful remains to be seen. Who would you nominate?

Let’s All Hate Toronto is opening on Friday. It looks a bit silly but may be amusing.

In any case, I perceive a need for (CN tower) HATE TORONTO t-shirts.

I googled around looking for these and I can’t believe no one has done them yet. It seems that if so many people hate Toronto it’s a potentially huge untapped market.

Any takers?

Taking transit to check out a new industrial serger yesterday, I picked up Eye Weekly, one of the local free papers, to read on the train.

Eye doesn’t usually have much if any fashion coverage but I got a little thrill when I found a pull-out section called City of Style, by Damien Rogers and burlesque star-about-town Sasha Van Bon Bon.

After discussing the merits and limitations of Toronto as an “International Capital of Style” I sincerely enjoyed Eye Weekly’s take on Toronto style in terms of local history.

The truth is I never thought of Margaret Atwood or Margaret Trudeau as style icons, and I’m sure they never thought of themselves that way either. Yet I love the idea of dramatizing their stories in a fashion editorial. Sometimes I forget the bohemian side of Toronto’s style – and perhaps compared to international stars of bohemia, Toronto’s artistic elite seem a little bit too subtle and sarcastic to stand out visually. But these are the elements that make us Canadian, eh?

The pull-out also features a little Style Timeline with a few neat little tidbits. I admit it – Canadian Fashion Nerd that I am – I had no idea who Carole Pope or Margery Steele are. Also, I found out that my old school has been pumping out fashion grads into Toronto since 1950. The music scene in Toronto has been a major influence on what the hipsters wear since the 1960s – most notably Punk and Rave – and would make an interesting study in and of itself.

It’s nice to be reminded that there’s a lot more to Toronto style than meets the eye…

What is Ultimate Platinum?

It’s a big fancy fashion party for the Toronto Fashion Incubator‘s 20th anniversary, coinciding with their annual New Labels show. There will be runway shows, wine, food, celebrities, and as much Canadian Fashion as the Carlu can contain…

You can buy tickets or why not help the good people out if you’re free on the 17th – TFI is seeking volunteers.

Canadiana and Fashion are fascinating if somewhat mutually exclusive subjects. If you have been reading finalfashion.ca for any period of time you know that I love to try and put my finger on the subtle, elusive idea of “Canadian Style”. I do like to examine Canadian contrariness towards our own culture – as a somewhat self-effacing nation we tend towards a lack of demonstrative appreciation.

Every once in a while some struggling Canadian bohemian has to make a stand – or a website – in an effort to make us appreciate what is under our own noses. And then some other struggling Canadian bohemian has to take their arguments apart… because let’s face it, backhanded clapping is the Canadian way to applaud.

Did you know that Toronto is the global capital of style? If not, head on over to the HOME OF THE REASONS WHY TORONTO IS THE CAPITAL OF STYLE. New York, Paris and London – eat your hearts out. This site contains many reasons why, all in capital letters. I’ve transcribed some of the best reasons here using lowercase for legibility…

• The powers that be have mislead our global neighbors and cousins in regards to the branding..nay the soul of the city. … Enough of the money spent on ads going into major American media that hasn’t even been spell check.. Enough!

• The true Torontonians know what we are about.. that we have a little swagger in our step..

• Yonge Street – Because with a street this big & long we never have performance anxiety while fulfilling our duties as the style capital of the world…

• We have to come up with a way to communicate what we are all about. We the people of Toronto have defined what gives us our swagger.

I live in Toronto. I like it. Is it THE global capital of style? Well no, it’s not. I’m not ashamed of living in a second city and but I’m not about to swagger either. If anything reeks of performance anxiety it’s that peculiar Canadian need for validation from American celebrity. Sadly, the most definitively Torontonian aspect of the copy I quoted is its self-conscious silliness.

What defines Torontonian style for me? The lingering historical hoserism and protestant dullness. The way we have to cede to practicality and dress for the weather. All of the things that make Toronto’s “style” what it truly is, are the same things that make us the antithesis of a style capital.

What do you think? Am I just another naysayer tearing Toronto down from its rightful position as a Global Capital of Style?

Or is this site a joke? I can’t tell.

I just had the most fun I’ve ever had at Fashion Week in Toronto. I was there for the last two shows – Zoran Dobric and Bustle. I got to see some of my friends both from fashion school and the internet – shoutouts to Anita, Carolyn and Truc who were all there watching the shows for us this week. They’re the ones you want to check out for more complete coverage.

My only regret is missing the David Dixon show. He incorporates Canadiana in his show concept. Outside at night, wrapping his audience in Hudson’s Bay Blankets, and walking his models around a bonfire. Appropriate for a designer with a cool, subtle touch, whose clothes hang in the historic St. Regis Room.

It is a very Canadian night tonight too as that snowstorm from the southeast insists that no, it is not spring yet.

Zoran Dobric‘s show is the third of his that I have seen.  It’s fascinating to watch how his design vision refines and evolves.  There was slashing, embroidery, twisted silks, and printing, but this time it was more tightly edited and coherent. The room was packed, the clothes were beautiful – it’s a pleasure to see this work get more recognition. One shirt stood out to me.  It appeared to have been cut from a folded tablecloth with the creases from the folds left in deliberately. It was cut into a simple top using a similar technique this one I made last summer.

Bustle was menswear with a “country chap from the 1910s” sort of look. Paisleys and suspenders. The models were professional and confident. Though the clothes lacked the drama of a finale to fashion week, the show had great energy.

It was fun to wander around the Liberty Grand, observing everyone around me with their great shoes and best outfits, and talking to people. I think I may have to go to Fashion Week more often in the future.

The runway was decorated with bristol-board/sharpie cut out letters dangling from the ceiling. The Drake Underground was crowded and restless and boredly amused. Absolutely full of young metropolitan adults. Mmm. Beer.

There was a television crew with their equipment squeezing in and getting in people’s faces.

The night starts out with an announcement that there would be a short film, and then the show would start at 10pm.

The film we are shown is a close-cropped single shot of a marathon running by, with marathony-noises. For like… a long, long, time. The video’s contribution to the atmosphere seemed to make people anxious and impatient. Maybe it was just me.

Because then we waited a really long time past 10 for the show to start. No one knows how long because there is no cell phone service down there. There was a regal lady with grey hair and a fur coat in the front row who appeared to have a word with the co-ordinater of the event. There was a little morality play about late fashion shows up at the front between the Dame of Toronto Fashion, the Arts Co-Ordinater, and the Co-Designer.

Finally the band (Taigaa! from Brooklyn) started to play and the show began. Taigaa! plays that kind of music with the synth keyboard, the drummer girl, and the singer. The lyrics are spoken or moaned, like this: off… off… off… off… OFF, Offff…. etc.

Then the clothes came out. The models were all very good, professional looking and attractive. One guy was unusual, and had a very distinctive walk.

The clothing definitely co-opted some of the iconography of Canada, in kind of a literal way. The cut of a dress would resemble an Inuit parka. There were coat-toggle sort of references on all sorts of garments. Thermal pants made an appearance. Otherwise, it was boutiquey, quirky. The models wore tights in Royal Blue (which Adrian and Anita agree with me is the next hot colour), but the clothing was brown or grey with grey screenprinting, making the palette of the collection seem very muddy – intentional? The one screen print I idea I liked was an oversized, broken houndstooth pattern.

It seemed a little rushed. There were still creases on some of the pants where the fabric had been folded on the bolt… and not all of the seams were pressed.

There’s something about me and night time events, I felt like such a wallflower at this one, just standing and watching everyone, and “not getting it”. I saw Carolyn and Anita but I just didn’t have the right sort of energy to really enjoy the show. I’m such a fashion contradiction these days… I am a part of it, and apart from it.

Everyone is sending me this flyer. I guess they know that I probably might have something to say about American designers (NYC gets top billing) using Canada as a legitimate source of inspiration (Canadian designers might do well to take note).

Feral Childe are Alice Wu and Moriah Carleson, two designers from New York City , who are currently in residence at the Drake Hotel. Their collection “Canadian Alphabet,” is inspired by the cultural and vernacular characteristics of Toronto and surrounding environs.

What I am curious about is how literal it will be, either in the sense of employing iconography of Canada, or influenced directly by the neighborhoods in the vicinity of the Drake where these artists resided, or if Canadian alphabet will be more abstract. The poster doesn’t offer me a clue. I could check out their website, but I’d like to be surprised.

That is if I can find my 2nd wind at 9pm. This will keep me up past my bedtime.

6… one of the things I’m doing in 2007 is trying at least one new recipe per weekend.

Last weekend I did a snapper, my first fish ever. So easy and good.

This weekend I’m going to one of my favourite books ever, Edna Staebler‘s Food That Really Schmecks. This is my all time favourite, classic Canadian cookbook. It’s a book that’s just as fun to read as it is to cook from. Edna loves food and loves life and has lots of little anecdotes and encouragement. I just learned that she died just last year at the age of 100.

She has a lot of recipes that are Southern Ontario German Mennonite, and I’m trying one today – Sausages in Beer, with mashed potatoes and salad with sour-cream dressing. Mmmmmmm.

…

TFBB is going to be all sorts of excellent. I’m going to be there at 11:30, and I am really excited about eating brunch with so many terrific Toronto fashion bloggers and readers.

I have a material desire: a Canada Goose parka.

The Resolute: ultimate function, uncompromising in what it is for.

Canada Goose makes stuff that’s a little more urban too, the Trillium is quite nice:

But it doesn’t have the same kind of singularity as the Resolute.

I have an abiding love for things that have this kind of essence; things that are original. I don’t mean original as in a haute couture creation. I mean a style that stands as the definitive manifestation of a garment. Like the Levis 501, or the Doc Marten 1460.

I’ll get the Resolute 8501. In black.