When I lived in residence last year, there were a few permanent fixtures in our floor’s common-room: a sewing tool-box, a ruler, stray threads, and a frazzled first-year fashion student. She wasn’t frazzled because she was a slacker and rushing to catch up. She was frazzled because she had a pattern for a dress due the same day as three other hefty projects.

This year - my friend’s second year in the program - she’ll see a model walk down a runway wearing one of her creations. Finally.

In the school’s annual 2nd and 3rd year fashion show, students in Ryerson’s Fashion Design program will show off their final projects of the year: women’s evening-wear and menswear.

Serpentinata: Get Twisted will showcase the work of emerging Toronto designers, and Jessica Biffi - former Ryerson Fashion Design student and runner-up in Season 2 of Project Runway Canada - is just one of several anticipated industry attendees.

On Friday, April 9, 2010, Ryerson University Fashion Design students are getting twisted - and not just because they’ve worked ridiculously hard for the past 7 months and deserve a break. The show promises “a surreal glimpse at the work of these student designers as they enter the Toronto fashion industry,” according to Alex Fox, a fashion student who is overseeing the show’s production.

- Stephanie Fereiro

I made a special trip home for my small prairie town’s Blast from the Past Fashion Show. The event was put on by our local performing arts council, as a fundraiser for a festival they host every spring. When they sent out a call for both clothing and models, I was at once surprised and thrilled - the request was not only for clothing, but for the stories behind the clothing, too. They did not just want models, but models with some sort of connection to the clothes they would be wearing. The idea was that a granddaughter would walk down the runway in a blouse her great-grandmother made, or a niece would wear a dress from her aunt’s wedding in the seventies. The clothing was important, but equally important were the lives the clothes had led.

The weekend before the show, I had come from university to my tiny prairie hometown for a visit. That Sunday afternoon, my delightful seventy-something-year-old neighbour came over to deliver some food (as per always) and discuss the development of the show. She had donated some clothing and was excited about the prospect of it being worn again, so many years later.

“We’re supposed to wear hats,” she reported, “Come over next weekend and I’ll let you wear one of mine.” I may have let out a little squeal of excitement, and the prospect of vintage fashion in tiny St. Michael made my neighbour just as happy. As she left, after an hour of talking about pillbox hats and wedding shoes, she called from the doorway, “It’ll be more fun than a picnic!” I haven’t been to many picnics in my life, but now that the show is over I can tell you she was absolutely right.

When I arrived at the show on Sunday afternoon, hat firmly on my head, the place was abuzz with ladies and tea. Everyone was chatting or marveling over the displays of clothing, shoes and accessories that didn’t make it onto the runway.

Organized by decade, the program started with pieces as old as 1920 and worked its way into the seventies. The grand finale was a display of wedding dresses from the same span of years, the highlight of which was a woman who modeled her very own gown from 1952. With every few pieces came a story about where the piece was from – who it belonged to, where it was worn, who was wearing it now.

In a community where fashion rarely differs from the jeans-and-tee-shirts norm, this appreciation for clothing from the past surprised me – though only momentarily. The audience was full of the women who would have worn this clothing the first time around, the Red Hat society filled a table or two, and they needed a whole bus to bring residents from the seniors centre. Who would enjoy the stories behind vintage clothing more than the people the stories belonged to in the first place? But whether you were old enough to have lived through these periods or not, you understood every item of clothing was connected to a person, an event, a life.

Growing up, it never seemed as though my fellow small town inhabitants shared my love for thrift store treasures and clothing dug out of the back of my grandmother’s closet – but after everyone’s enthusiasm for Blast from the Past (old and young and in-between), it’s possible I’ve been wrong all along.

-Hailey Siracky

We almost never do this at WORN, but Viktor and Rolf’s Spring 2010 collection was just so so so amazing, I can’t help it. The mix of peach, coral, and turquoise with harsh black lines and hints of structured menswear tailoring with billowing bias just blew my mind. Have I mentioned the gravity-defying tulle? I can’t stop watching the video - every time a model turns the corner and you’re hit with this wall of cross-sectioned tulle, my heart beats a little faster. What do you think?
hearts, Serah-Marie

I got a call from my friend Lara while at work on Wednesday saying she had an extra ticket to Montreal Fashion Week. After closing the store and throwing together an outfit I hopped on my bike and gunned it down to the Old Port to catch two collections: the nautical-inspired romantic looks of Eve Gravel and the jackets and coats of Soia & Kyo.

I loved Eve Gravel’s combination of harem khakis and loose tops with girlie details like lace, sheer fabrics, and some of the models’ flouncy long curls. The relaxed pant styles were very wearable and came across as incredibly stylish in contrast to just about every fit and fabric of pants you see on the street. Standouts for me in this collection were the mid-thigh length shorts in black khaki paired with a baggy off-the-shoulder sweater and the leather zip-up bodysuit worn with low-rise khakis and exposed hips. I definitely could have done without the seventies hipster cord headbands since they’re such a played out touchstone at this point, but the rest of the styling was well done.

I was a bit less wowed by Soia & Kyo’s collection of jackets, which included some very covetable takes on the classic leather jacket in colours like black, purple, grey, and orange. They featured nice details like oversized studs and belts and looked great worn over babydoll dresses, though at times the undergarments outshone the jackets themselves, like in the case of an amazing pair of sheer beige harem pants. The trench coats were incredibly boring and the feathered flower hairpieces brought the whole collection down, along with Keds sneakers that made the models walk really awkwardly. But I appreciated some of the other accessories like knee-high leather boots, white socks with heels, and a few pairs of cute fingerless leather motorcycle gloves.

- text by Tessa Smith, photos by Lara Kaluza and Tessa Smith