And it went great.

There was a fantastic vibe in the room coupled
with the energy of some very smart and passionate
people looking to make the Toronto Week of Style
the best event it can be.

We talked about a lot of things including model call 
(which is temtatively May 8th and 9th right now),
the venue, (which will announce soon) and other
administrative things.

What was even better were the ideas that were generated
about making the Toronto Week of Style the great event
it is destined to be.

Stay tuned, because we are working on some more things 
now. Exciting things

It is now starting to get fun.

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As I mentioned on @weekofstyle earlier today,
the first draft of the schedule was put together today.

As usually the case,  it was a long, arduous process that took up pretty much
the whole afternoon, it was extremely gratifying as the first pass resulted
in a very strong offering to you all.

We have some extremely fantastic shows that I am very much looking forward to.

As per usual, we are featuring a lot of home-grown talent mixed with some fantastic
global brands.  Bambumoda is back, as is Men In Tuxes.  I also broke
this last week on twitter, the Toronto Week of Style is once again proud showcase and support
Aboriginal designers.  This year, we will also be mounting a show call Unsigned Hype
and of course GreenisBlack is back.

Stay tuned my intrepid Style Icons..

More to come.

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So we have been busy planning, having meetings and just generally getting things together.

A couple of things that we are working on:

- venue selection
- choosing designers
- organizing schedule

Normal stuff.

One thing that I am excited about is the new logo that we are coming up with.
The last few year’s, we have been a bit schizophrenic with our brand image and identity.
In marketing land, this is a cardinal sin.  I have let it slide a bit because my experience
in the creation and running of events of this nature, scope and lately, influence has
always pointed to the allowance of a gestation period.  Basically, you need to let the
brand grow, make mistakes and find its soul.

We are almost there.

We have captured the hearts of the disenfranchised fashionites in the city and allowed
them to embrace their inner Style Icon.  We have made the establishment sit up and
take notice of the changes that need to be made.

And, we have started something that has quite literally changed the face of fashion.

I am personally very excited to unveil the new logo in the next few weeks.
Growth and change happens in steps.  We have made some great steps (and missteps),
but we have a great new energy that will once again change and elevate the level
of discourse the Style Industry in Canada requires to reach the level of the talent we have here.

So stay tuned.

Because we are about to really have some fun.

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The Style Box just put up a great post about Fashion Week etiquette.
Great little blog posting.  For those who are trying to navigate this wonderful world of the Style Industry (of which the Fashion Industry is a part of) should definitely give it a gander.  

A couple of points in the posting I want to illustrate and fully agree with : 

I feel (Toronto Fashion Week) should be strictly a trade event – especially when most people are there to work.. 
 

The majority of public attending the shows respect that, but some public don’t take that into consideration: they steal seats, fill up space in the already crammed tents, complain about the shows being “so short”, and generally just get in the way.

She also posts these great ‘Ten Fashion Commandents”
My favourite :  ’Thou shall dress to impress.’

These commandments are great as they also illustrate the strictness of the Fashion Industry. They have a very specific set of rules and way of doing things that they feel must be adhered to.   The fact is that these rules makes sense in New York or Paris or Milan.  

In Toronto, it’s a bit different.

Most of the afternoon shows are generally empty.  The overcrowding and craziness tend to happen (and rightfully so) in the later evening shows with some of the more established designers (David Dixon, bustle, etc) and these shows tend to be big PR initiatives as opposed to sales exercises as there aren’t any big buyers at the event throughout the week as most budgets are already accounted for and sales are already made from the bigger more relevant Fashion Weeks.

I have walked into the tents (and Liberty Grand) every year without any real trouble and stayed throughout the whole evening catching six maybe seven shows. I can tell you, etiquette is not the issue, relevance is.  

What designers need is a viable sales channel, not a hoped-for one.  I have mentioned this many times before, Canada has one big retailer and a great network of small retailers as well as a few traditional media.  Nothing like the major Fashion Weeks in the world.  What we do have is 2 million of the smartest and most well-informed consumer base in North America, one of the first great network of non-traditional media made up of bloggers and (now) twitterers.

Until the Toronto Week of Style was created, they weren’t being tapped into. Why is that?  

Leadership.

The Toronto Week of Style has been successful on many levels (of which I will post about another day), one of the main points of success is that consumers are now being looked at across this country and slowly in various points across the world.

By relaxing the rules a little bit and looking at things differently, there might just be a way of achieving what we are all looking to do – provide Canadian Designers of the Style Industry their place at the global table.

That’s what we have done at the Toronto Week of Style.

That’s why we don’t need Commandents.

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Hey folks,
Haven’t been on for a bit as we have been more on the Twitter.

Fear not, we will start posting more regularly as the event is in its planning stages and we are starting to get going.
Our ID on twitter is @weekofstyle, jump on board if you are part of the Twitterverse. Would love to chat with ya.

Talk soon
Cheers

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Ok..so as you can tell if you read the dates, we kind of dropped off the face of the earth awhile back.  Our last post was in April when I put a post requesting designers. (Great response btw everyone…thank you).

Well, we’re back.  We will be updating this blog constantly from here on in.  I really didn’t anticipate just how much of a time commitement it takes to maintain a blog, coupled with the fact that this year’s Week of Style was a lot more involved than the first year.  We had an increase in attendance by a whole lot and we showed a heck of a lot more designers this year (70+), so it was a lot bigger…and a lot better.

We’ll be posting frequently. Won’t be on a set schedule of any kind.  Basically, if there is something that we want to share with you, it’s going up.  The subject matter will be a lot broader. We will not only post about the event is coming along, we will also post relevant information and happenings in the Style Industry as a whole.  This blog will become a great resource for all of you Style Icons out there.

So sit back and enjoy the read…cause here we come.

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Hey all,

we have had a couple of designers interested in being
involved with the Toronto Week of Style.

we have put together a list of people that we are going to
start contacting on Monday..

because there is so much talent in the city, I am
always afraid that we are going to miss someone,

so..for those of you interested in being involved
leave a comment here and someone will get back
to you within a day or so…..

Cheers

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While we’ll be announcing the schedule for the Toronto
Week of Style at our press conference May 7, one thing I can
let you in on is our involvement this year in Contact – the
month long photography festival that takes place throughout
Toronto.

I will go into more detail closer to the launch date, however,
the info is up on Contact’s website, so give it a gander..

and as always..let me know your thoughts..

Cheers

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so I went to Mass Exodus tonight at Ryerson.
For those who don’t know…it’s the fashion show
featuring the graduating class of Ryerson’s
Fashion program.

It was a lot of fun and it was great to see some
really talented future designers.

It also gave me some inspiration in regards to
a potential show that I can program.

Stay tuned for what I end up doing…..

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Working on finalizing the designers list.
It never fails, as soon as I get some semblance of finality,
we get these awesome opportunities to include some pretty cool brands…
It happened last year in a big way..
(our website was screwed as a result cause
I don’t think I had all the info up at the time I had promised)
we’re more ready for it this year..however, this year it’s starting a lot earlier.

 All of this is to say that the designer list that I was hoping to have
is going to pale in comparison to what we are going to present. 

There is still some room, so if you’re an up and coming designer,
drop me a line and we’ll see what we can do.

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