PARK LIFE

toronto winters are excrutiatingly long and painful. everything becomes a mission of epic proportions. even just stepping out to the corner shop to buy a pack of fags is like an olympic level sporting event. first you thrown on about three layers of clothes, and then a parka, plus your scarf, beenie and gloves and then hype yourself up to take the first step outside your door and make like usain bolt and run as fast as you can to the store. all the while avoiding sheets of ice that's carpeted the pavement. so when lady summer comes around batting her sunshine eyelashes, the whole entire city goes mental.
by mental i mean five times more drinking than most of the year. four packs of cigarettes more each week. an extra hundred dollar spent on the weekend. too many nights you can't remember. a little bit of slutting around. bands galore. gallery openings with open bar to "look at art". and bringing a proper large picnic blanket to the park so you and your mates have something to lie on and watch the sun go up. a perfect way to end an amazing night. until a few hours later when you wake with the most horrendous hang-over of your life. so then you go back to the park and drink some more cause in your head it's much better to be drunk than to feel hung-over. but that's not how i spent my summer at all. just kidding.

RIFAT OZBEK

with fashion month slowly approaching and dozens of young desigerns set to be heralded as "next big thing" by the fashion press, i however have been pre-occupied going back to "the next big thing" from two decades ago. yes gaultier and marc jacobs still are able to pack a wallop, but with galliano's unfortunate fall from grace i've gotten bit with a case of hopeless nostalgia.
also, having been let down by fashion for the past few seasons i really haven't got any other alternative to get my fashion fix but to go back to past, when designers were still concerned with radical ideas and not the opinion of their financial backers and board of directors. a time when fashion was still able to juggle commerce and creativity. not to say that there aren't a handfull designers at present capable of doing so, what i'm refering to are ideas that were so forward thinking then that have become so prolific now.
case in point, rifat ozbek. once the torch bearer of east meets west fashion, his legacy has now been passed on to highly influential designers such as dries van noten. who, like ozbek in the eighties and early nineties, manages to introduce ethnic references with a jolt of youthful, contemporary energy giving it a relevance that is at once timeless and completely modern.
born in turkey and raised in england, ozbek took the multi-cultural collision from the streets of london and his own turkish background and brought it to the world of high fashion. coming out around the same time as lacroix's bourgeois excess of poof skirts and lavish embellishments, the youthful, kinetic energy of ozbek's designs provided a much needed contrast to the almost unattainable vision of french fashion.
his concerns were more of what was happening now. referencing traditional ideas and adapting it with a much more youthful sensibility heavily influenced by london's riotous club culture of the time. where english dandyism met africal tribal motifs but without the overt romanticism of other designers who borrowed from other cultures like saint laurent.
with the world getting much smaller and more obessed with youth than ever before and cultures and traditions melting into one big giant flavourless pot, i think an ozbek come-back is well long over due to add some spice to the stew.

MATCH PLAY

lace, suede, golf? what do these three have in common? well miuccia hates all of them! and as usual, it becomes the starting point for one of her critically lauded collections. the latter jump starting one of her most exuberantly joyful collection to date. prints versus prints on colour versus fabric. tacky much? perhaps, but no one can make tacky on point and as sophisticated like the grand dame of milanese fashion can. after all, this is the same woman who bravely challenged our notion of good and bad taste those many moons ago. and its her special sort of genius that can time and time again force us to change our opinion about the ugly and the beautiful. armani probably think its straight up atrocious, but tell that to her billion dollar listing at the hong kong stock exchange as she laughs her way to the bank!



photos: style.com

THE BEAT

bless christopher bailey's heart for bringing back that quirky, english eccentricity he once brought to this institution of british-ness. while there were still loads upon loads of delicious trenches and macs, the collection didn't turn into a procession of outerwear (unlike last season, and the season before, and the season before that). it actually felt like this collection had a specific point of view. and more importantly, a story to tell. which frankly we haven't seen since his derek jarman's garden inspired collection three years ago. the artisan details, the brilliant use of colour on those drool worthy jumpers, ethnic inspired prints, and the footwear which will be next season's equivalent to this season's prada espadrilles, there were so many elements here that harmoniously worked together into one confident idea. it served as a reminder that bailey is capable of doing so much more than fashionable raincoats. i dunno about you, but my faith has been restored!



photos: style.com

TAIT MODERN

my oh my! canucks are running rampant in ye old london towne! did all the good designers abandon the great white north for the promise of england? following erdem, mark fast, and todd lynn's yellow brick road is young upstart thomas tait. a young man who holds the title of the youngest designer to graduate from central saint martin's grueling m.a. in fashion design. architectural cuts that frame knife pleat skirts and razor sharp trousers brilliantly mixes experimentation with old world technique. while his contemporaries in fashion's most exciting city are favouring wild abandon, the youngest of them all is a study in masterclass and restraint. and we all know that it's those sort of fellas that have the longest life span of them all.



photos: style.com