The first real hot ticket in Toronto this year, in my opinion, was the @Style panel discussion, part of the international event Social Media Week.  You had to get up pretty early to grab a spot on the RSVP list – naturally I’m a lark and signed up on 5:30am on January 29th, third on the list, seconds after Susan Langdon tweeted about it for the first time.

Four speakers, invited by Jyotika of exshoesme, brought four very different perspectives to the effects of social media on fashion.  At first I was a little skeptical – other than Cherie Federau of Shrimpton Couture, none of the speakers are bloggers – and even Cherie is primarily an online retailer, not a blogger.  So what sort of insights could an audience populated mostly by fashion bloggers expect?

–

The first speaker was Susan Langdon of the Toronto Fashion Incubator (full disclosure – TFI is a sponsor of Final Fashion).  Susan introduced the new Social Media Guidebook (available here) that the TFI commissioned, and that I had a small part in contributing to.  The guide is made for fashion entrepreneurs who are unfamiliar with the current social media landscape and want to be able to use the tools available to help their brand. I haven’t seen the book in full yet so I can’t comment on it other than the brief overview Susan gave us; while the bullet points seem a bit jargon-y (what the heck does authenticate even mean?) the interviews with many interesting bloggers and entrepreneurs would be well worth the cost of admission.  The questions I answered for the guide were good ones and I gave very candid answers.

–

The second speaker was Cherie Federau of Shrimpton Couture.  I was looking forward to hearing Cherie speak the most – the scribbly notes in the moleskine above are from her presentation (I don’t own a mobile, and I don’t live-tweet, ever). Of all of the speakers, I identify most closely with Cherie – not only do I admire her as a tremendously successful online entrepreneur, she is also enthusiastic and genuine with a great sense of humour.  Cherie is self-taught by trial and error (like me) and abides by a similar philosophy of relating to people online – essentially, be open to the world, stay on top of your correspondence, be a decent human being, and be true to yourself. Cherie’s talk offered the most real, applicable advice to living and working online.

–

The third speaker was Dr. Alexandra Palmer, costume curator of the Royal Ontario Museum.  She began her presentation discussing buttons on 13th century jackets – and I was wondering what the connection was (because surely it wasn’t to buttons on mobile phones).  Over the course of her talk, her insight became a bit clearer – that the application of technology to fashion is what makes new fashions possible – for instance, the development of stretch fabrics made the innovation of pantyhose possible, and pantyhose in turn made it possible for women to wear miniskirts in the 1960s.

However, when it came to the application of social media technology to fashion, Dr. Palmer seemed dubious of the advantages – she expressed cynicism that the greater speed and dissemination of trends could do anything for the development of modern fashion, that somehow the overwhelming preoccupation with speed represented a sense of loss and “waste” to her. She drew some thoughtful parallels between social media and the development of the Jacquard loom, the first computer, which put many weavers out of work. She also discussed a bit about how technology is affecting the modern retail business – such as how prolific communication makes retail innovations like pop-up shops possible.  Another revelation on retail was about how shopping for clothing is so dependent on tactility – and how now bricks and mortar stores are being used by customers to try on clothing, and online stores are used to find the best price.

During the question and answer session at the end of the talk, I was able to ask Dr. Palmer whether she had any insights on how the invention of the printing press effected the fashion industry, and whether there are any parallels from that period of history now.  Her response was somewhat surprising to me – though she acknowledged that printing sped up the trend cycle, she dismissed that the technology of printing had a significant effect on fashion, which seems unlikely. Now I am more curious about this than before. Dr. Palmer is an esteemed historian and I have enjoyed reading her admirable work on costume history, but on media, she seems uncharacteristically uncurious.

–

The fourth and final speaker was Lisa Tant, editor-in-chief of Flare Magazine. Lisa is the only EIC of a fashion magazine in Canada who is a prolific tweeter with a significant following online. She can seem surprisingly unguarded on twitter sometimes – just over a week ago she got some flack for “Sobbing to think that a 13 year old gets a front row seat to cover couture. No justice in this world.” which she obliquely alluded to in her presentation by saying that its best to avoid being “cute or sarcastic” on social media. I couldn’t help but find it a bit ironic that Lisa Tant would be telling a room full of fashion bloggers about social media the very next week – seating assignments really do seem unfair sometimes – and wondered if I could think of a slam-dunk question to ask her, but somehow I couldn’t.

Watching Lisa Tant speak, she seemed much more lucid and insightful than she appears on Twitter, which I think does reveal a limitation of micro-blogging. The major message I got from Tant’s talk was how magazines are concerned with the broader strokes of culture and celebrity – while what is important for bloggers is a sense of individual personality. Flare can be commended for recognizing the work of Tommy Ton before he became a phenomenon – but for the most part it seems like the publication is concerned with using the existing momentum behind individual brands – such as Lady Gaga and Perez Hilton, to drive the growth of the Flare brand.

This supports my own conclusions when it comes to the new-media vs. old-media discussion – that mastheads are becoming less valuable than individuals. Flare as a brand is not only hampered by its very corporate-ness (unsupportive Rogers policy tries to discourage the use of social media), it is more and more dependent on the brands of individuals to drive its own brand. Online, Tommy Ton is a bigger brand than Flare – and his fans will follow his work whether its under the Flare masthead, or Style.com, or on his own site.  I think that editors and old media say that the holy grail online is speed (Tant says “readers expect immediacy”) but the real prize we’re all after is actually an individual brand (Tommy often posts photos months after they are taken).  I think Tant knows this whether she says it or not – her own personal influence is getting pretty close to equal in numbers to that of Flare’s – I would even argue that it is more valuable in qualitative terms to Flare, and especially to Tant herself.

–

All in all it was a terrific, thought-provoking morning, and the various perspectives provided some fascinating contrasts. If you attended, what did you think? I’m up for a discussion.

Last year, things changed so unexpectedly in life and the world, it seems a bit foolish to go making predictions for this year.  But that is just the kind of fool I am.  So here it is.

Fashion weeks have lost their relevance and will die off. This is a pet prediction for me and so far I have always been wrong, but this time may be the charm.  My reasoning – the law of fashion is that popularity is the predictor of death for any trend.

To say that fashion weeks have grown popular is an understatement – its a freakin’ 300 ring circus out there.  In New York City last season there were over 300 shows, both offsite and at the tents, in a week.  How many shows out of that number were actually directional enough to warrant fashion coverage?  What fashion media outlet has the personnel and resources to sort the wheat from the chaff, especially when so many of them have to attend advertisers shows whether they are newsworthy or not?  Its a juggernaut that is often more despised than anticipated by the fashion community, and if they had the collective will to strike, they probably would – but they won’t, with a superfluous surplus of bloggers typing away in the tents.

Beyond that, there are now fashion weeks all over the world, each vying for the attention of local media.  In Canada I’ve already lost count of all of the fashion weeks.  Toronto Fashion Week and Montreal Fashion Week – perhaps Canada has the talent to sustain two quality weeks, barely.  But two fashion weeks in Ottawa, two fashion weeks in Vancouver?  What for?

When everyone is doing it, the value of each fashion show is reduced.  Runway has lost its exclusivity and therefore its meaning.  The time is ripe for a market correction, and I would look towards the fashion forward to lead the way.

This year we have seen some powerful designers drop out of New York’s Mattel Fashion Week.  Betsey Johnson.  Vera Wang. Other designers have opted to scale back their shows and tighten up their invitation lists.  If the big name designers can’t hack the bottom line, it stands to reason that the upstarts will hesitate to make the leap of faith.  Showing can be a death knell for a designer with a lean marketing budget.  This past year in Toronto I saw two designers fold right after showing at a fashion week – Arthur Mendonça and Janet Hill – whatever PR they generated is rendered worthless and evaporates.

Clever designers will figure out other ways to get their names out there and make sales – whether it is focusing their resources on connecting with buyers and media directly or broadcasting to the world via the internet, there are so many inventive options for the entrepreneurial out there that the idea of showing at any fashion week seems unimaginative and old fashioned.

What about the media?  Mass layoffs are happening at magazines and newspapers. The rumour mill has it that IMG will not be as generous with media passes for bloggers this time around. Invitations for the big shows will be fewer and fiercely fought-over.  It will be a test for the PR industry to sort out which media outlets have the relevance to make them seat-worthy.

These are all pretty obvious observations.  What is my prediction?  I predict that besides the flagship fashion week in New York City, North American fashion weeks will struggle to find enough talent willing to show.  That the big name designers (and upstarts) who choose not to show will stand a greater chance of surviving the recession.  Only once the value of fashion weeks has been corrected by the market will the cachet of the runway show recover.

Do you have your own prediction about the future of fashion weeks?  Are you a fashion week believer and think I am all wrong?  Discuss, dissert, or discredit me now.

This macro-economic shift is registering some interesting changes in fashion and language that I think bear remarking upon.

1.

Depressionista?  I Object! Finally someone speaks out over the rampant misuse of the so-called-suffix “ista” – this time used in the service of Wal-Mart, the “Hot New Store“.  The use of fear to incite a stampede of consumerism is a low point for fashion blogging.  Dare I coin the word PRopogandista?

I have been reading a lot of “Recessionista” posts that exhort people to purchase more cheap stuff, with nary a mention of the thriftiest of lost arts, mending.  Mend not Spend!  Extend your wardrobe for nothing.  The feeling of pride and satisfaction is far greater than the rush and regret of shopping.  Try it.

2.

Speaking of words past their due date, NOW announces “The End of the Hipster” which provoked a lot of discussion on the internet, and presumably in real life, before everyone suddenly lost interest on Thursday afternoon.  There is a lot of distancing language being used by the Hipster Spokespersons in the article.  This is the kind of revulsion only the collapse of a recent fashion can inspire.  While I welcome the new post-ironic age, I’m already anticipating the Hipster Revival of 2010.  Also worth checking out is the fashion spread (dare I utter the word Hipsterista?).

Ok, I took the quiz to make sure, because I suspected I may in fact be a hipster.

Are you a HIPSTER? My Result: You wish! OK, you dress like a hipster, act like a hipster and listen to hipster music. But you just don’t have the whole package. Sorry, keep trying. You are not a hipster. Quiz School Take this quiz & get your result

I think it was my proclivity for the East End of Toronto which did me in.  What’s your score?

Valerie Steele came to Toronto again to launch her new book Gothic: Dark Glamour at ILORI.  I have met her twice before and had not been able to get over my fan-girl nerves.  I have read almost every one of her books while I was a fashion student and consider her one of my fashion heroes.  I have visited FIT to see her exhibits every time I have been in New York City.  I did see the Gothic exhibit in New York earlier this month (with Philip and Gilda) and was, as always, wonderfully impressed with her work.  In person she is enthusiastic, friendly and now that I have finally relaxed a little – easy to talk to.

I asked her what inspires her to select her next project.  She told me and Adeleine (who took this photograph and is also an incredible person to meet) that she tries to anticipate what fashion’s next focus will be.  While she was working on Dark Glamour, she attended this Dior Haute Couture show.  John Galliano’s designs struck so close to the themes she was exploring, she was hopping up and down in her seat.  In fashion there is no greater validation than seeing your instinct for what is next come down the runway.

What infectious joy for fashion her work inspires in me!  I look forward to seeing Valerie Steele’s upcoming exhibits, and seeing her in person again.

I just got an invitation to Ottawa Fashion Week! Its sponsored by CIMA. I hope I have time to go, since any excuse to go to Ottawa is a good one – there are a lot of good friends and good restaurants there, but I have no idea if they have good fashion. They do have at least two fashion bloggers that I know of, though I haven’t met any Ottawa fashion people personally, and I don’t recognize many of the names on the schedule.

Ottawa Fashion Week event will be an exciting opportunity to celebrate the birth of a fashion community in the national capital, promising a spectacular exhibition of fall and winter collections, unforgettable night events to follow, and the chance to rub elbows with some of the best and brightest from the media and business community from Ottawa and across Canada.

There are more fashion weeks in Canada than you can shake a stick at these days. Not only do we have Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, there is another fashion week in Vancouver called BC Fashion Week, a Calgary Fashion Week, an Edmonton Fashion Week, and of course the Lethbridge Fashion Weekend. (Lethbridge, Alberta – Population 81,692) Thanks to Passion Instilled Fashion for assembling the list.

Toronto has its own fair share of Fashion Weeks and Weekends – L’Oreal, FAT, Ryerson, Elle Show, The Clothing Show, FDFT – and the Week of Style is now upon us.

Canada’s hottest, most anticipated, and most audacious fashion event will be Moose Jaw Fashion Week in 2012. If you are not there, you will be very, very square.

..

BONUS LINK – Halifax International Fashion Week

The fashion industry’s fourth wall is collapsing.  Marc Jacobs left a comment addressing a post on Cathy Horyn’s blog about an incident of facial expression at the Louis Vuitton show (scroll down to number 40).   Could this be the beginning of the end of the designer mystique?

Horyn’s next post responded to Jacob’s comment and amended her previous statement.

It might not seem remarkable, but that little exchange makes public relations the monkey in the middle and has implications for how the fashion industry, and really, every industry, is changing.

I noticed the other day that Kanye West has a blog now.  Whether it is him or his staff hitting the post button is not important – West has figured out that on the internet, getting your version or vision out there is your prerogative.

Especially if you are a celebrity.

Or a fashion designer.

Or a journalist.

Or…

I expect to see a lot more participation on the internet from some perceptive, talented, and even famous people out there.

The internet is an extension of your nervous system that connects you to other people’s nervous systems.  It is both personal and universal.  It collapses time and space.

It is incredible!

Now is a good time to invest.

Reviewing some of my favourite fashion copy cliches reminded my of that one time… back when we had the TAB party.

One of the privileges and pitfalls of being a fashion blogger is the PR pitches. Most are spam, but some incite genuine curiousity… as Chanel reminds us, never be too quick to delete… sometimes it really is good enough to be true. Or, as the TAB party taught us… well, what did we learn here?

Anita got the email from TAB saying that if we had a TAB party and posted it, we could win a trip to New York. So Carolyn, Anita and I agreed that we would party together, TAB style. See how blogging makes you the tool of corporate America?

Besides the fact that the drink itself is a vile, artificially sweetened artificially pink jolt of mystery herb and caffeine, the “TAB party” kit was an array of branded bits of plastic and parlor games with a sinister subtext. The line that sets the tone for the material we were supposed to have fun with can be seen on the top left corner of the magnetized frame around my face -

“Fake is for last night, not handbags.”

The quote on the right says -

“If it doesn’t fit, it was ugly anyway.”

What is the message here? “I try on ugly clothes that don’t fit me, I’m sexually unfulfilled and conspicuously consuming, at least I have my fuel to be fabulous?” This is a drink for unhappy people. Thank you Coca-Cola.

We didn’t even finish the first can the aftertaste of the message was so bad. So we uncorked the real fuel for fabulousity… of the alcoholic variety. And I thought I had seen the worst ever example of female-focused ad copy.

That was until I got the gift bag from Chick Advisor’s Shop Crawl, which was a really awesome event. They had lots of cool sponsors like Kiehl’s. The gift bag had a cute bar of soap called Transition Man for literally washing that man out of your life. I thought that seemed okay, Transition Man didn’t take itself too seriously. Good gift for the recently broke up, maybe.

But the product copy that matches the TAB party favours in terms of contempt for customers is Sunsilk ThermaShine, which asks on its bottles -

“Hair Duller Than Your Last Date?”

“Dull hair ATTRACTING DUDS?”

I just want to ask that shampoo who it thinks it is talking to. I have not tried the shampoo yet. Somehow I think it would make me feel dirtier instead of cleaner.

They tried to send me to Hairapy, I said no, no no.

Does attempting to make people feel bad about themselves and their lives really sell more stuff? Did I just sell out by writing about it?

At the Fashion-Incubator, Kathleen asks What Will Become of Us? Great comments, and gets me thinking about me and my generation…

This is one of many outstanding comic strips at xkcd.

These days I am thinking a lot about fashion illustration, entrepreneurship, information, personality, networks, entertainment, minimalism to the point of survivalism… and truth. What will become of us, indeed… well I have an idea of what I am going to do… actually many small ideas.

The Toronto Fashion Incubator has to move to make way for condos. By chance I spoke with Susan Langdon, who reassured me that the TFI is dealing well with the inconvenient situation – taking the opportunity to move up. Currently there are only 4 resident designers, and I notice all of them seem ready to move up to the next level in terms of getting their own spaces, so the TFI will have the chance to turn the situation to advantage. I look forward to seeing the TFI continue doing the good work they do for the next generation of fashion designers in Toronto, and I hope to help too, in some way…

Last time I looked at Threadless the cheque they gave their artists was a lot smaller than $1500. I am going to be doing this and I already have an idea, I mean it this time I am really going to do it!

Cute incoming linkers – Patterns, Fabric and Thread, Oh My! – Clichés á la Mode – Fashion Graduate.

Here comes the backlash – cheap chic and celebrity designers have peaked and are officially on their way out. The end of these trends will create millions of refugee fashion victims…

See what families around the world eat every week. I am fascinated by visual representations of consumption. Look at images of real life in the past, I try not to forget how unprecedented our present is.

In the fashion industry, we are at the cusp of something. Luxury houses are going public, which strikes me as a strange stumble that will make fashion’s veteran players a lot less relevant. I am reading Joseph Abboud’s wonderful biography Threads right now. He talks about how buyers once relied on independent instinct, and now crunch the numbers of the past in a vain attempt to predict the future (or else they are fired). The culture of fear and greed and boards of investors kills fashion leadership. (Or does it?)

Designers like Gianni Versace made fashion alive, and interesting, even if the appeal was narrow. Now, Versace the corporation, without genuine human personality, hedges its bets. Compare the old pictures of Linda and Naomi laughing and leaping in exhuberant, loudly extravagant but enjoyable Versace clothing with modern images of a waxwork-worthy Madonna frozen in luxurious yet unwholesome Versace environments.

Why does it seem to me like even the the legacy of the superstars of fashion is on the verge of victimhood, and fashion’s history nothing but relics without relevance? 1994 might as well be 1904, but I still look back, trying to tease out patterns from the past, trying to answer the question what will become of us.

The possibilities are endless. Time to get back to cutting and sewing.

From the Fashion-Incubator, Kathleen asks us:

What would the effect on our industry be if gas prices doubled over the next ten years? What if they tripled or quadrupled over twenty to twenty five years? Any prognosticators in the crowd?

The consensus at F-I is that increased energy costs would favour local producers but would severely affect the availability of raw and therefore processed materials. The most significant obstacle noted by Kevin Carson:

The how-to information is out there, and the building blocks of local production are already widely distributed. The question is whether people can get over the learning curves, and put the building blocks together, faster enough to cope with the dislocation.

We live in an affluent but dependent world (those of us with internet connections), rich with education but poor in applicable skills when it comes to producing things. There will be a leap of ingenuity required and it seems that many will be unprepared for. The quality of things produced availably can be expected to be less and of poorer quality than the cheap abundance we are used to.

Still, I am not sure that widescale chaos will erupt as a result of soaring energy costs. Things will be different, for sure. Humans are very adaptable. For what it is worth, here is some prognostication, though I have pushed the date of my prognostication to a lovely round numbered year.

The most affordable materials will be the ones produced closest to you. In the case of most cities, this will be garbage. Garbage economies will spring up to reap the rewards of another generation’s refuse.

The most fashionable materials will be the most unavailable. For people in Toronto, that would be virgin cotton or silk, or as Canada produces hardly any fibers or fabrics, practically any virgin fiber.

Since there are no weaving factories left in Canada, most new fabric will likely be knit either by machine or by hand. Fur will become more common. New woven garments will be an exotic rarity.

There will be a larger divide between rich and poor than there is now, although quality of life will decrease somewhat for everyone. The rich will be more likely to have their clothing tailored and updated to reflect the trends – yes fashion will go on with the usual variations. The poor will wear a previous generation’s castoffs. There will be a slightly more defined difference between the dress of the rich and the poor than there is now.

With less energy, buildings will be heated less in the winter and cooled less in the summer. Clothing will reflect this – winter clothing will be insulated and layered and summer clothing will be loose and light. The strength of the UV rays will be much stronger with less particulate matter in the air – clothing worn outside will often be sun-protective. Outer clothing will be washed less often.

Rising inflation suggests that wealth will be more likely to be worn as jewelry than saved in the bank. This is one of the factors that creates starker differences between the dress of the rich and the poor.

Clothing that takes more skill to make will become hyper-valuable, as will anyone with any skills in this regards. Shoes will certainly be affected by this – cobblers are rare here in North America, most of the ones I am aware of will be dead in 2050. Good shoes in the most common sizes will be extremely dear. Improvised substitutions for shoes are more common. There will be more shortages of things, and less variety available in everything. Local cuisines will develop; and so will more extreme regional variations in dress.

Wages will be generally depressed, bringing greater world parity when it comes to the cost of labour, but also much less consumer spending. There will probably be a lower level of employment as the economy is in the process of shrinking. There will be less productivity, so fashions will also change more slowly. People will be thinner on average than they are now, meaning that the idealized fashionable body will become more voluptuous.

There will be a decrease in productive fertility too, by necessity. It is hard to tell if this will result in more or less equality for the sexes, which historically is a major determining factor for how people dress. Unfortunately if major social trends in the modern Western world are taken to their logical conclusions, it may be a far more religious and conservative society in 2050 than we have now. There may still be access to information but it may be protected by elite gatekeepers. Clothing reflecting a greater power divide between the sexes means that men’s and women’s clothing will be less similar, more defined and restrictive.

Just a guess. Whatever actually happens will probably be way more interesting. So, what do you think you’ll be wearing in 2050?