Archive for Nadine LaRoche


FASHION Reporters

Halifax: Musicians take the stage at Off the Cuff, Week 4

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Kolston Gogan of Stereo Penguin in Louanna Murphy's winning design. Photography by Shaun Simpson

Kolston Gogan of Stereo Penguin in Louanna Murphy's winning design. Photography by Shaun Simpson

Challenged to dress a local musician for the stage, the four remaining Off the Cuff competitors were back with new work on on August 2. Heather Rappard dressed her musician, a harpist, in a floor-length midnight blue gown–but was again warned by judges to step up her technical game.  Bree Mackin, paired with Mary Stewart, dressed the guitar-strummin’ songbird in a bubbly party dress trimmed in black lace that unfortunately won’t take her to the final round. Read more »


FASHION Reporters

Halifax: Off the Cuff Week 3–The designers tackle avant-garde outerwear

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Akshay Tyagi's winning design from week three of Off The Cuff

Akshay Tyagi's winning design from week three of Off the Cuff. Photography by Shaun Simpson

Last Sunday’s challenge in Halifax’s Off the Cuff, a fashion competition and runway show presented by Argyle Fine Art gallery, couldn’t have been any more inappropriate. The designers were assigned the task of making a garment that was inspired by Halifax’s tempestuous weather and that could be transformed in some way. And so, on one of the scarce sunrise-to-set sunny days in the ‘fax, five designers wrapped their already-sweltering models in practical, toasty outwear. Read more »


FASHION Reporters

Halifax: Young designers duke it out at Off the Cuff

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Creations by (<i>from left</i>) Alison Seary, Louanna Murphy and Askay Tyagi. Photography by Shaun Simpson

Creations by (from left) Alison Seary, Louanna Murphy and Akshay Tyagi. Photography by Shaun Simpson

Down the open back of one dress, a waterfall of hard drive platters and spindles spill along the model’s spine. On another, vinyl records make up a dramatic, bell-shaped skirt. Anti-slip fabric folded into box pleats puffs out below a bodice of cassette tape on a third cocktail dress, and a fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh pull together even more shiny bits, from silver-sprayed Christmas tree light bulbs to strips of film and strings of CDs. These are the ingenious creations hatched from week one of Off the Cuff, a fashion competition and runway show that has taken its inspiration from Project Runway and found its home in Halifax’s Argyle Fine Art gallery (1869 Upper Water St., 902-425-9456). Read more »


FASHION Reporters

Halifax: NSCAD fashion department is seeing green(er)

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When NSCAD University’s fashion students return to their Seeds Building studio in the fall, the art college will have become a little bit greener: the latest muslin cotton available in the fashion department will be certified organic.

The decision reflects the department’s desire to put into practice its long-standing eco-conscious mindset, one that is shared by many members of its student body, its only full-time faculty member, Parsons alumnus Gary Markle, and Anne Pickard, the department’s technician and an instructor within the university’s School of Extended Studies.

But the department’s green approach, urges Pickard, is more than just in vogue.

“We’re not focusing on this because it’s a hot thing,” says Pickard. “This is not for any other reason than that it should just be part of every consciousness.” Read more »


FASHION Reporters

Halifax: Deux Fm’s backyard bikini

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This is a bikini you can’t help but feel good in—and it has nothing to do with how much time you may or may not have spent at the gym this spring. Made right here in Nova Scotia, the Deux Fm Mystique ($82, at Love, Me Boutique, 1539 Birmingham St., 902-444-3668 and at select boutiques across Canada, deuxfm.com) string bikini is about as homegrown as you can get, and wearing something saturated in sustainability feels so damn good. Read more »


FASHION Reporters

Halifax: East Coast designers take the runway in Montreal

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A dress by PEI's Sunsets on the Eastside, who are showing at next week's TransCanada Runway. Photography by Alex Clark

A dress by PEI's Sunsets on the Eastside, who are showing at next week's TransCanada Runway. Photography by Alex Clark

Eating up the East Coast love is all well and good for our Atlantic Canadian designers, but who can say no to a little national exposure? Not Kim Munson, Anna Gilkerson and the Sunsets on the Eastside trio, who will have their designs walked down the runway at Montreal’s Festival Mode & Design (June 17 to 20, festivalmodedesign.com) as part of the event’s inaugural cross-Canada showcase on Thursday, June 18.

The TransCanada Runway will bring together designers from Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Nunavut, Toronto, Montreal and our beloved Maritimes and marks the first time Atlantic Canada has been represented at the festival, a four-day event produced by Sensation Mode, who also put together Montreal Fashion Week. Read more »


FASHION Reporters

Halifax: The goddess of gaudy

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Appliqued earrings from Wa'Ou

Appliqued earrings from Wa'Ou

I carry around a little bit of Moncton-born designer Céline Vautour on a near daily basis. It’s a quarter-sized fabric strawberry, as plump and adorable as its muse, that sits on my ring finger. It’s a touch gaudy, a bit unexpected and borderline ridiculous. But I love it. And hey, that’s exactly how I feel about Vautour’s entire collection: the funky and funny Wa’Ou. I love it, too. Read more »


FASHION Reporters

Halifax: Gladiators fight on in the port city

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Gladitorial footwear from Steve Madden

Gladitorial footwear from Steve Madden

To be honest, I thought we might be over them. I mean, once a shoe has been molded into a jelly version of itself, you expect it’s on the way out—one can only stretch a trend so far. But not so with the gladiator, a shoe still storming the streets this season, and storming them in classier, sleeker and downright gorgeous styles.

A recent birthday trip to NYC provided the slap in the face (or kick in the pants, I suppose): within my five-day visit, I had collected a mental catalogue of nearly a hundred pairs of the strappy shoe parading about town. How could I have been so blind to the gladiator’s obvious victory over shoedom? My recovery from the blow was quick. Feelings of revelation were rapidly replaced with twangs of desire and a moment of weakness in Zara even had six pairs slung up one arm as I bent over, nearly perspiring, zipping, sliding and buckling my tired feet into a deep brown pair of the warrior wears.

Now that I’m back on familiar ground, I’ve scoured the shops and filled my arms with gladiator shoes yet again—but this time with Halifax finds—letting you know where to find the sweetest sandals in this city.
Read more »


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