Moda Uomo was my first fashion week this year. It was also my first time in Milan, and I thought that perhaps the menswear week would be a little bit calmer and easier to penetrate than Moda Donna. Milan intimidates me, to be honest. It seems very corporate and not as indie-blogger-friendly as other cities, and my Italian is non-existent. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that these fears were, if not unfounded, unnecessary, as I picked up five invitations in Milan just for the trouble of asking.

My first show was Corneliani – the morning was chilly and we got off at the wrong bus stop so we hustled through frosty streets to get to the venue – a design museum. The runway was one of the longest I’ve ever seen and curved, with watery blue projections along the curved wall. The clothing was very clean and careful, grey clusters of grown-up wool suits and handsome, substantial bags.

I have to admit that during Frankie Morello, I was so distracted by the show I forgot to draw it. I love seeing showmanship (literally) on the runway – it’s too rare. Morello sent out punky clubbers bristling with nails and fur and cool downtown boys in beanies, which gradually relaxed into hippie-dudes with bindis and sarongs. For the finale the model’s sarong hung dangerously low until it was dropped with a flourish. Morello literally had the entire crowd leaning forward in their seats and practically salivating. Now that’s runway.

The John Varvatos show was another highlight. Inside a shabby church with chipped plaster and a faded painted angels on the walls and ceiling, they reproduced a bit of Central Park and sent down a series of exquisite New-York-style imaginary boyfriends. I loved drawing this show. The other fun part of this show was getting to sit with the team from Holt Renfrew and for the first time having the opportunity to introduce myself to a Canadian fashion inspiration, Barb Atkin. I was not expecting to see a familiar face in Milan, so this made me smile.

Iceberg had a modern-times backdrop and a bit of Charlie Chaplin rumpled flair. Bowler hats tipped-back, big cardigans and hands in pleated pants-pockets. As a proposal for menswear it was charming – but somehow it didn’t inspire my best work. Perhaps because I switched to markers from watercolours at this point, I was still getting a handle on a new medium.

The final show, Gazzarrini, was the show that was perhaps the most peculiar. It doesn’t take much in menswear to cross over from interesting to implausible. If I met someone wearing these clothes in real life, I would find this person a somewhat strange character. Pin curl pompadours, funnel necks, very high-waisted trousers, and a pop-o-flouro palette.

As usual, you can see the development of sketching over the course of the week – stiffer at Corneliani and very loose and abstract by Gazzarrini.

I did find my first menswear week to be much more chilled out than any womenswear week I’ve attended – perhaps giving a taste of what fashion weeks were like in the pre-blogger days. I saw only a small handful of street style photographers and met only a couple other bloggers – though of course the shows I attended were not the hottest tickets. It did feel like there was space for everyone that wanted to be there. And of course, the people-watching was wonderful – folks were well-dressed and well-groomed, and there were very few show-ponies.

My whirlwind tour of Italy  is concluded, and I’m sifting through a pile of sketches at my desk now. To place-hold while I catch up, here is the most successful live sketch, completed while the show was in session. John Varvatos presented a lineup of New York rock-star crush objects which seemed to inspire some of my better work.

It always seems like the further I get into a fashion week, the more abstract the sketches get. In these two cases, I barely added anything to the original live version.

The Issey Miyake invitation was a truly pleasant surprise. It was a hot dusty Sunday in the Tuileries and I had been walking around carrying a heavy bag all morning, so I took an hour and a half nap in those heavy metal chairs they have under the trees outside the tent. When I woke up, a crowd was surrounding me waiting to get into the show. I had ended up in a cluster of lovely ladies who work in the Issey Miyake showrooms all over Europe, and as I did my warm-up sketches they took an interest in me and gave me a bit of inside track into the company and the backstage happenings. The show was running very late.

The scene was pretty hot – lots of dress-upwomanship going on under the sun. I was snapped while sketching by Bill Cunningham, which I tried to appear oblivious to, while being quite chuffed. I never get asked to pose for street style – could care less, really – but to merit even an offhand snap by the godfather of street style photography was a pleasant moment. I like to think it was because I was sketching, but it could have just as easily been because I was wearing a white shirt.

Going from the bright scene outside to the the pitch inside the tent couldn’t have been more dramatic transition. Over a thousand souls inside a hot black tent on a scorching day created an airless atmosphere that was less than ideal for absorbing a collection properly. I managed to squeeze into a back-bench seat and squeeze out almost a dozen sketches from my squeezy-brush.

The show was appropriately light for spring, both in the sense that lights were used in the staging and the looks themselves appeared light and literally botanical. As the first collection under the creative control of designer, Yoshiyuki Miyamae, the sense of renewal came across.

Thanks to Colin McDowell and the Design Museum, I had the lucky chance to sketch at the Fashion Fringe show. The live version is on the left – the more polished version is on the right. Click for big.

Fyodor Golan was the night’s award winner.

Heidi Leung, my personal favourite. (See a slide of the rough overlaid with the final here.)

Nabil El-Nayal, the crowd favourite.

Cristina Sabaiduc‘s audacious London debut. This is an image of the rehearsal. You can see the magnetic garments clinging to the back wall there. Cristina dressed her models in these modular effects as they walked around the block. Check out her full collection here.

The video is off the hook.

CRISTINA SABAIDUC SS12 Motion from Cristina Sabaiduc on Vimeo.

My sketches and notes from the show are here.

This wonderful candid was captured by Lynsie Roberts. See more of Lynsie’s shots at her site.  Emma and I were absorbed in sketching by Cristina’s runway. Emma Block does brilliant illustration with a delightful collage technique.

My Saturday, February the 19th morning started off at Georgia Hardinge (below left), an award winning designer with the designs to back it up. It was the emptiest show I went to all week, which was too bad because it was also one of the highlights. Getting the fashion crowd up after Friday night is a no-go… though on the other hand, those in attendance were attentive. Hardinge showed Geiger-esque digital prints, crisply aerodynamic shapes in jackets, body-conscious dresses with amazing cut details, and jackets with undulating cut edges and dimension suggesting topography, or dunes, or the patterns that waves make on sandy beaches. Truly incredible execution, confirmed when seen up close at the exhibition upstairs later.

It was a very dull, rainy, cold day in London. My next two shows were both from the PR company that scatters “e-vites” like confetti. I walked past insanely long lineups of people waiting in the rain with damp computer printouts and thought to myself: I don’t love fashion shows as much as these kids. Instead, I whiled away the afternoon in bookstores.

The last show of the day was Bryce Aime (above right), and the first time (out of three attempts) that I actually got to see the inside of the On|Off venue. Aime showed a series of sharply cut leathers and leggings, and over the course of the show the models got encased in acrylic crystals printed with satellite photos of snow-covered landscapes. It was the most successful gimmick I’ve seen in a long time, and not in a small way because the beauty was so subtly done – simple eyeliner and a softer version of the mohawk/quiff  created a lighter shade of punk. So many designers try and fail to do anything new with black leather and hard edges, it was great to see it done with a defter hand.

Two out of two shows that exemplified what I had hoped to find in London – designers that manage to be interesting and sophisticated, at the same time – not an easy thing to do by any means.

Skipped the after parties again!

After working Berlin fashion week, I dropped the ball a bit for London Fashion Week, with no freelance project obligations to encourage me. My application for accreditation was slow to go through and before I knew it, it was already February, and I hadn’t done any show requests or anything.

Then I kicked my own slack self in gear and made calls, dropped like a hundred cold emails. I’m only in London for a limited time, and I’m here to meet people – its not like I can let the first fashion week get away from me. Its true that fashion weeks can be a painfully vast amount of bureaucracy for a very limited amount of showtime. The truth of it is that the queuing, the emails, the invites, the rejections (silent or polite, rejections were the norm, I am nobody in London), is a sorting process, an extremely elaborate people-mixing machine. There really is no better way to meet a lot of fashion people than through the shared subhuman tedium punctuated with brief flashes of disappointment and awe that is a fashion week.

The week started off stillborn on February 18, with a long outdoor queue (where I met up with my euro-gig-buddy, Barb) for the Jena Theo show. I prophetically gave us a 50:50 chance of getting into what was rumoured to be a small venue at On|Off… and I was exactly right, as we got cut off by Health & Safety just as soon as we reached the door. Seemed like from then on, I should be putting pounds down on my bets.

The truth is, I had nothing to expect – I was familiar with none of the designers whose invitations I received. The first show I managed to actually attend was Prophetik. A sketch from the show is above. The show started with a really long powerpoint statement that I didn’t finish reading in time – this is obviously a brand that subscribes to Philosophy, as well as taking inspiration from historical costumes especially 18th century revolutionary styles. The effect was somewhat like a costumes for a cult. It was extremely well made, sturdily crafted stuff, but also heavily literal. The show succeeded, with live music and a total vision in styling, in transporting the audience to another time and place – however the clothes seemed to belong in that time and place, and not in fashion, here and now.

I was supposed to attend Jean-Pierre Braganza next, however, I made a rookie mistake about the venue. So instead, I saw the Ones to Watch show, a collection of promising designers sponsored by Vauxhall, a car company.

Kirsty Ward (above left) was one of my favourites of the week so far. She took a very standard material favoured by young designers – sheer sparkle organza – and made it interesting, shaping it into freeform loops with wired, bound edges that suggested discarded, airily inflated clothing, and paired it with extreme hardware in the form of necklaces made literally from hardware. Anja Mlakar (above right) did colour and texture, playing with oversized woven effects, laser-cut windowpane patterns, plush velveteen contrasted with moire and sheer, and padded rings around the body.

Tze Goh (above left) did a post-modern version of Jackie Kennedy – wools and neoprene that stood away from the body, careful seams and rounded forms. A fitted capelet created the suggestion of shoulderblades underneath. In a week where there was so much muchness, Goh’s designs were refreshing. Sara Bro-Jorgenson (above left) did gauzy, gothic knits that still managed to be modern – including intarsia trompe-l’œil effects that fooled some editors into thinking they were merely printed.

After a bit of a break, I went to line up for the only proper tent show I was invited to, Bora Aksu. Well, I use the term invited loosely – this particular PR company simply told me to show up with a printout of my emailed invitation… and of course, I wasn’t the only one who received these peculiar instructions. It was a mob scene. There is a man who does the difficult detail of herding cats into their separate holding pens – priority, seated, and standing. I don’t envy him his job – it seems very stressful and somehow he manages to be somewhat good humoured about it. The hordes of standing people with their printed invitations crushed and carried me along into the runway room, or I guess maybe the catwalk cave? I ended up in a high corner where I had a distant view of Bora Aksu, which from far away seemed like so many tubular leather corselets, chunky cable knits, and green lace bridesmaid’s dresses, all smashed together.

After that, I went to Brick Lane to take in a couple presentations, including one by Christopher Beales, whose sharply pointed, glamourous gowns had a linear sensibility to them that made them a pleasure to draw. This was my favourite, emphasizing and echoing hipbones and shoulder blades.

There were after parties that I didn’t go to. I am more of a daytime girl, at this stage in the game I think its OK to admit that big beats and open bars don’t really draw me.

Debra Goldblatt of rock-it promotions is one of Toronto’s top publicists for fashion, lifestyle and celebrity clients, and has been a great connector and supporter towards the fashion bloggers in the city for years. Her straight talk, genuine warmth and love of the business makes her a total PR darling.

This year rock-it promotions launched their own blog called On The Fourth Floor, and one of the most popular features is called Media Darling, asking PR-related questions of various personalities in the media (including me). I turned the table to get her perspective from the other side.

Who are your PR heroes? What inspires you about the leaders in your profession?

I have many colleagues that I work with in the PR field that are heroes. Some are owners of their own agencies and some are more junior and starting out. I don’t kiss and tell, but I will say that PR people who handle themselves with grace in difficult situations as well as have a sense of humour are my favourite people in this profession. It’s not always easy and it’s a very demanding career and a smile can go a long way.

What do you wish people understood better about PR, especially when it comes to fashion events?

I wish people understood how difficult it is to please all the people, all the time. There is a lot of ego in the fashion world which, to be frank, is quite unlike the other fields we work in (film, lifestyle, health, hospitality, etc). During a really large scale event like a show during Fashion Week, we really do try our very best to ensure that everybody is treated with the utmost respect and occasionally, there is a mistake. It could be a seat forgotten, a volunteer making an error, or an rsvp missed. Trust us that we kick ourselves harder than anybody ever could when those situations happen, so no need to kick us when we’re down (unless you’re dealing with a PR person who isn’t remorseful – then you should kick them. Hard.).

How can an independent blogger grab your attention? What do you look for when you choose the bloggers you want to work with?

I think this is very similar to the feedback we hear from media about PR professionals. I hate spelling errors and I hate it when somebody addresses a note to another agency and sends it to me. It’s impersonal and shows they are saying the same flattering things to another agency to get into an event. I like sincerity and soul. And a blog that is clean, well written and has relevant content for my client(s).

What is your biggest pet peeve when it comes to bloggers?

Not acting professional. Don’t get hammered at an event b/c there is an open bar. If you want to work with us, save the slurred rants and drunk tweets until after you’ve been our guest. It’s no different than us inviting you into our house if it’s our client’s event. You look bad, we look bad. We want everybody to have fun, and believe in freedom of speech, but work with us, not against us. Positive energy is so much better than being a bitch.

Rock-it now has its own very lively, content-rich blog, On The Fourth Floor. What are your thoughts on the blogging experience?

It’s a TON of work! I’ve always had major respect for our friends in the blogging world, but it has been a really eye-opening experience to be the editor of our own site. It’s a collaborative effort in our agency, but most of it falls on a few specific team members and we def. feel the added work. We’ve had a ton of fun getting ‘fan’ mail and we just got our first piece of critical mail, which was equally fun. The Media, Darling posts have been wildly positive. I wanted to create a blog that PR professionals and students, in particular, would subscribe to because it was fun, digestible and offer something of value while being fresh. The fact that other agencies out there have been reading it and letting us know how much they enjoy it, totally rocks. I love that kind of good karma.

Full disclosure: rock-it promotions is a sponsor of Final Fashion. Thanks Deb!