Toronto Fashion Week teams up with indie RE\SET collections
Partnership aims to unify local scene by bringing together established names and alternative labels for February shows
Two vastly different Toronto fashion organizations will join forces to showcase Canadian designers in a single event in February 2018, the Kit has learned.
The official Toronto Fashion Week and the alternative RE\SET collections have entered a partnership that will bring together curated and established names with indie labels under one tent in Yorkville Village from Feb. 5 to 7.
The goal of this mutually beneficial partnership is to unify the local scene and earn the respect of the international fashion community, says RE\SET co-founder and fashion director Dwayne Kennedy.
A third fashion event player, Jeff Rustia’s Canada Fashion Group, which owns the populist TOM and TW shows, is not involved in this venture.
Toronto’s runway shows have been a mishmash of disjointed events since IMG, the U.S. conglomerate that owned fashion weeks around the world, pulled out of it’s Toronto venture in the summer of 2016.
Real estate developer Peter Freed of Freed Developments bought the name Toronto Fashion Week and relaunched TFW last September with an extravagant tent show in Yorkville. It was a blend of traditional runway shows with industry anchors including Pink Tartan and Lucian Matis and panel discussions featuring fashion heavy hitters such as French designer Jean Paul Gaultier and Toronto-born, New York-based photographer Petra Collins.
Simultaneously, RE\SET, created by the Collections founders Kennedy, Mel Ashcroft and Brian A. Richard, presented its second event to the alternative crowd at the Great Hall on Queen St. W. with streetwear de- signers Wrkdept and Alex S. Yu showing alongside more established, edgy designers such as Sid Neigum. The collective hosted a flexible format of presentations and included a “see now, buy now” designer showroom, as well as runway shows.
“Some designers will want to do the big splashy runway show with 25 models, but for other designers, that doesn’t necessarily fit their business model.” CAROLYN QUINN TFW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
The hope is that this alliance will bring the focus back to the fashion through creative platforms and diverse offerings for designers at different levels, says Carolyn Quinn, Toronto Fashion Week’s executive director.
“Some designers will want to do the big, splashy runway show with 25 models, but for other designers, that doesn’t necessarily fit their business model,” Quinn says. “Those designers will have an opportunity to showcase in a smaller way — maybe it’s100 of their key buyers, media and VIP in that room,” she adds.
“We’re really excited for our designers to have a new audience and for the more consumer-facing environment,” Kennedy says.
“Sales are super important beyond the marketing aspect. To that end, our designer showroom will now be open to the public for the entire event,” he says.
“It’s not about building another New York or London. We’re trying to experiment and see what works,” Kennedy says. “It’s about finding a new solution that is true to our Canadian voice.”