All posts under ‘Halifax’


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

Charlottetown: Jenn Grant is my style Wonder Woman

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Fashion bloggers are notorious for getting style crushes on certain starlets and singers to the point of almost obsession. Heather and Jessica of Go Fug Yourself fame are shamelessly impressed (and dare I say in love) with the style prowess that is Anne Hathaway and there are whole sites devoted to the fanatical fan worship of the sometimes stylish and sometimes questionable Olsen twins. As a blogger based on Canada’s East Coast, my style crushes tend to be a little more homegrown. My current favourite is the always-impeccable singer/songwriter Jenn Grant. 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: NSCAD’s Wearable Art block party

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A piece by Kaleigh Dunlop at NSCAD's Wearable Art show. Photography by Anna Gilkerson.

A piece by Bree Mackin at NSCAD's Wearable Art show. Photography by Anna Gilkerson.

I’ve got five words to say about NSCAD University’s 19th annual Wearable Art Show: thank god it was good. Taking a turn from the bar venues WAS has occupied as of late, organizers Sarah Roy and Bree Mackin brought the AIDS Coalition of NS fundraiser to the streets, piling the event’s hundreds of guests under a tented portion of the city’s Granville Mall.

A novel idea, really, except that it was raining, gusty and bloody cold. Within minutes, my coifed bob was flattened, my notebook pages were rippling and the jots of ink on my program were running. The evening’s hosts—Brian MacQuarrie and Bill Wood of Halifax-based sketch comedy group, Picnicface—even distributed shammies to audience members on either side of the runway’s potentially troublesome wet spot.

But all those grisly details got swept away with the frigid wind when the 2009 WAS unveiled some truly spectacular pièces d’arts.
Read more »


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