When you hear something is being offered or given away for free people go into a different mental state, they become instantly alert as if the piercing sounds of a dog whistle has been blown and they quickly scramble to get what is being offered. This is somewhat of the feelings I and many ladies experienced when word spread online that Estee Lauder was offering a free professional makeup application and photo to women to update their social media profile photo.

I signed up for a session at Holt Renfrew and when I arrived for my appointment the Estee Lauder section in the department store was buzzing with ladies being primed and painted. The staff was pleasant and attentive making sure all the customers were having a good time and were happy with their results.

The makeup artist assigned to me was Amna and I asked her to create a very natural look since I had a meeting that afternoon. She applied the following Estee Lauder products on me:

• Foundation, Double Wear
• Concealer, Double Wear
• Powder, medium
• Eyes, Arctic night shadow and Pink Shimmer
• Mascara, dark brown
• Cheeks, Sunset Coral
• Lips, Sweet Kiss

I didn’t get the chance to take a good before and after picture but I was satisfied with the end results.

This is event is happening all over the country, for more details and locations visit the Estee Lauder Facebook page.

Fashion in the News is a collection of articles/blog posts online that catches my attention and (is in my humble opinion) worth reading. Enjoy!

Karl Lagerfeld Shot a Big Girl for V’s Size (The Cut) – Despite his distaste for curvaceous women, Karl Lagerfeld shot burlesque dancer Miss Dirty Martini on the mirrored steps of Coco Chanel’s 31 Rue Cambon salon for this month’s V magazine (zot alors!). The magazine’s issue focuses on body size and appears on newsstands January 14.

In India, Luxury Brands Need Localised Strategies (Business of Fashion) – Forbes magazine reports India has the fastest growing population of millionaires in the world and luxury retailers are eager to get in on this piece of the pie. To penetrate the Indian market, companies such as Montblanc and Louis Vuitton are using localized marketing tactics to engage customers and drive sales.

Charles Kleibacker, Fashion Designer, Dies at 88 (New York Times) – Charles Kleibacker, former fashion designer, adjunct curator of design at the Columbus Museum of Art and Master of the Bias cut in the 1960s, passed away at the age of 88.

Holt Renfrew replaces president with Canadian Tire exec (Toronto Life) – This past week luxury retailer, Holt Renfrew announced Mark Derbyshire will be replacing outgoing President, Caryn Lerner who held the position for five years. Some media reports speculate the changing of the guard is a result of the economic downturn but let’s just wait and see how the New Year progresses, we’re only 11 days into 2010.

Year in Fashion: Real life overtook the runway (Toronto Star) – Fashion Reporter, Derick Chetty provides a fashion year-in-review for 2009: the rise in popularity of fashion bloggers, Hollywood’s fascination with fashion in film (as a subject), the use of social media by designers to showcase their collections and the style invasion of Michelle Obama.

The big bum theory (Toronto Star) – For years the stick-figure look has dominated fashion magazines and catwalks. However, now the attention to the body has gone to the rear. Designers have made the butt the body part of focus for spring 2010, over exaggerating the posterior and hips by using panniers or you can use the 20^th century technique called plastic surgery.

Images from Refinery 29 and New York Times

                       

For the past five years Holt Renfrew unveils its holiday windows with much pomp and ceremony and rightly so, it’s one of the very few businesses/organizations that can shut down Bloor Street and it’s a hotly anticipated event that officially marks the beginning of the holiday season in the city.

This year Holt Renfrew’s creative team concocted a winter story book complete with snow people carolling, dancing swans, parading penguins and a marionette music box. The various windows showcased Holt Renfrew’s interpretation of classic holiday stories such as The Nutcracker, Swan Lake and Frosty the Snow Man with a stylish twist.

Featured designs by Gucci, Valentino, Helmut Lang, Canadian Philip Sparks and Alice+Olivia were incorporated into the window displays adding style and luxury to the stories.

I love passing by Holt Renfrew’s windows no matter the time of year because what you see is more than just a window, what you see is accessible art that incorporates style and creativity amidst Bloor Street’s barren concrete landscape.

Picture taken by Kimberly Lyn

                                                                                             

Lions and tigers and seals, oh my! Seals you say? What does that have to do with LG Fashion Week? Last night, at the Holt Renfrew Media Cocktail and at the opening festivities of Fashion Week two PETA protestors stood outside each venue handing out pamphlets. One was outfitted in a seal costume, happily waving and posing for pictures – very few (including me) took their efforts seriously to upstage the evening.

5:30 p.m. Holt Renfrew Media Cocktail

Despite the seal, last night was full of fun, laughter and Canadian style. Holt Renfrew and the Fashion Design Council of Canada (FDCC) flexed its powerful fashion muscle by gathering together designers, media, fashion bloggers and sponsors in Holt’s Bloor Street store for its annual media cocktail party.

Speeches by Barbara Atkin, vice president and fashion director for Holt Renfrew, and Robin Kay, president of the FDCC kicked off the evening, followed by a mini fashion show featuring seven of Canada’s top design houses. They are: Greta Constantine, Denis Gagnon, Lida Baday, Jeremy Laing, Mikhael Kale, Pink Tartan and Smythe.

Dubbed the new “Group of Seven” by Kay, these very talented designers showcased capsules of their spring/summer 2010 (S/S 2010) collections. My heart skipped a beat as my eyes saw their expertly designed garments. The cut, colour and style of each collection presented made me swell with pride – this is Canadian talent and fashion that should be celebrated 365 days of the year, around the globe and in every store in the country.

Two collections I was drawn to were Denis Gagnon and Greta Constantine. The design duo of Greta Constantine (Kirk Pickersgill and Stephen Wong) presented four pieces from their S/S 2010 collection. My favourite was a white dress with a sharply cut deep v-front.

As for Denis Gagnon, well I think he and I need to become best friends. This was the first time I had the opportunity to see his clothing in real life, and it blew me away. Seeing only four pieces of his latest collection showed his talent for detail, and expert handling of cloth such as jersey, leather and zippers. A standout piece from Gagnon’s line was a leather jacket with zipper detailing along the cuffs, neckline and hem. Edgy and genius! Take note of Gagnon’s custom-designed Aldo shoes which received a lot of attention during his presentation at Montreal Fashion Week (see Fashionmagazine.com for more information).

Personal highlights of the evening was having the pleasure of finally meeting two of Canada’s top fashion bloggers, Anita Clarke of I Want I Got and Danielle Meder of Final Fashion, as well as reconnecting with an old friend from university, Monica Mei who is the designer of Aime; I’m so proud of her accomplishments and I will definitely be attending her show this Thursday.

9:00 p.m. On the runway... at LG Fashion Week (1030 King Street West)

Now over to LG Fashion Week’s new home in Liberty Village where Lucian Matis was announced the winner of the FDCC Designer Development Fund followed by two fashion shows, 100 years of Beauty by L’Oreal Paris and the Stratford Shakespeare Festival “Wear Love Alive.”

The first show, 100 years of Beauty by L’Oréal Paris, opened with an opera singer and then chronicled fashion trends and beauty throughout the ages. It was quite beautiful and artfully presented showcasing garments on the runway from each decade starting from the year 1900 and ending at 2010.

Stratford Shakespeare Festival “Wear Love Alive” presented a runway show full of drama, elegance and sophistication. The costumes from the Stratford Shakespeare Festival utilized a variety of cloth including feathers, fur and lace that added a feeling of sumptuousness to the garments. Topping off the end of the show was a group of male models strutting down the runway. Be still my beating heart!

Now I’m onto day two of LG Fashion Week, stay tuned.

Photos taken by Kimberly Lyn.

           

Yesterday, I picked up my web media pass to attend LG Fashion Week Beauty by L’Oreal Paris, and to cover several shows for my blog. This is not my first time at LG Fashion Week, previously I volunteered for the Fashion Design Council of Canada (FDCC) years ago when the event was stilled called Toronto Fashion Week and it was held at the Liberty Grand.

However, this will be my first time acting as media for an event and I’m really looking forward to being at the shows and seeing the spring/summer 2010 collections of some of Canada’s best and brightest designers.

To date, some of the shows/events I plan to attend are: Holt Renfrew Media Cocktail, Jason Meyers, Jessica Biffi, Gotstyle Menswear Made in Canada and Pat McDonagh.

Good luck to all my fellow communicators working LG Fashion Week, I know you’ll do an amazing job!

Check back The Souls of My Shoes for LG Fashion Week coverage and show reviews.

             

Wednesday was a busy day for me but one of the highlights was meeting Scott Schuman, The Sartorialist at Holt Renfrew.

Days leading up to the event Toronto’s fashion literati were tweeting and blogging about Schuman’s appearance; how big the crowd would be, the long line ups to meet him, and the type of outfits (and attitudes) to be seen. Nathalie Atkinson, the National Post’s resident style columnist wrote an amusing article about this called Sartorializing Toronto.

Surprisingly on the day of the event there was a mid-size crowd with approximately 50 to 70 people gathered in the menswear section of Holt’s. Most attendees were able to have a brief word and take a picture with Schuman – yours truly included. He’s a very personable gentleman, a great conversationalist, and managed to put his admirers at ease. You could tell he is passionate about his work and was genuinely interested in meeting his faithful readers and learning a little bit about their lives. In addition, he carried a copy of his upcoming book The Sartorialist which will be released on August 18, 2009. You can pre-order it through Chapters.Indigo.ca or Amazon.com.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the event especially if you saw Scott Schuman at The Drake after party – I heard it was quite a scene with all the people!

N.B: I had two meetings on Wednesday and therefore went with the business look; grey pants from H&M, shirt from Club Monaco, Longchamp tote, and shoes from Japan – simple and clean.

(Images from Kimberly’s camera)

I just received an e-mail from Holt Renfrew announcing Scott Schuman, The Sartorialist  (one of my favourite fashion blogs/bloggers), will be in Toronto on July 22, 2009. Please see the event description below.

Hope to see you there!

Scott Schuman Personal Appearance
Holt Renfrew Toronto - Bloor Street
50 Bloor Street West, Menswear Entrance ON 1

Wednesday July 22, 2009
12:30-2:00PM

Meet The Sartorialist Scott Schuman, a leading authority on style for both men and women. His photos have become iconic representations of modern fashion and how it is interpreted.

Schuman launched his blog: The Sartorialist, in 2005 as a way to connect the way clothes are sold to the way they are worn. “I’ve always felt that there was a disconnect between what I was selling in the showroom and what I was seeing real people wearing in real life,” he says.

View a selection of his photographs in our Toronto - Bloor Street store between Wednesday, July 22 - Wednesday, July 29, 2009.

(Image from Holt Renfrew)