Fashion and Sustainability: Fashion Revolution Week

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

April 2018 marks the 5th year of the deadly collapse of Rana Plaza. A massive garment factory in Bangladesh that shocked the world over with its appalling working conditions. Fashion Revolution is a global movement rooted in demanding transparency for the garment industry around labour conditions, fair wages and environmental impact. Kelly Drenann, founder of Fashion Takes Action, and its creative director and longest collaborator, Sarah Jay, discuss the broad strokes of fashion and sustainability.

Continue reading →

Fashion and Gersha Phillips from Star Trek LIVE at Toronto Fashion Week

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Fashion and Designing for the Future with Gersha Phillips, Costume Designer Star Trek Discovery - from pop culture and historical references to existing Star Fleet heritage to technological advances what does fashion look like in star date 2250.

Continue reading →

Fashion and The Shape of Water LIVE at Toronto Fashion Week

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water, a fairy tale of a 1960s janitor and her relationship with a sea-creature captured in the name of science experimentation, earned 13 Academy Award nominations and numerous accolades and awards including: Best Director and Best Score 2017 Golden Globes, BAFTA winner for Best Production Design, Best Original Music, Best Direction, AFI Film of the Year and more. Costume design incorporates intensive research, character development, garment construction and more to bring to life the story on the screen. Costume Designer Luis Sequeira (nominated for Best Costume Designer by dozens of organizations including the Academy Awards

Continue reading →

Designer Spotlight: Jordan McKay of Hendrixroe

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

It was a chance encounter with a complete stranger that inspired Jordan Erin McKay to leave law school and follow her dreams to become a fashion designer.   Inspired by the vintage rock & roll and old Hollywood glamour icons, Jimi Hendrix and Marilyn Monroe, HENDRIXROE embodies the epitome of “glamorous rocker couture” with close attention to construction, fabric and fine lines, combining an innovative and unique perspective on the affluent ...

Continue reading →

Designer Spotlight: Nikki Yassemi of Narces

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Designer Spotlight episodes are the origin stories of fashion designers.  What kind of kid were they growing up? What did they submit to design school? When did clothing and fashion start to be an important force in their life? Donna Bishop asks about them, not their collections. Nikki Yassemi is a Canadian, Austrian born, raised in Iran designer with a long family history of couture, dress making and visual arts. Her label Narces, which she runs with her husband Stefan.

Continue reading →

The Arc of Luxury

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

There are a number of iconic luxury brands that have stood the test of time: Hermes, Louis Vuitton and Gucci to name a few. What do they have in common? What inventions influenced the growth and erosion of luxury fashion? Who has been bitten in the arse of expanding too fast? Nathalie Atkinson and Nicholas Mellamphy dissect the current arc of luxury fashion brands.

Continue reading →

Counterfeit, Piracy and Knock-offs

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

The fashion industry is fraught with copy cats and big business legal battles. While the notion of IP (intellectual property) protection within fashion is a relatively modern notion, fashion and branding lawyer Ashlee Froese discusses why it is a critical issue to designers and consumers alike.

Continue reading →

The Evolution of Online Luxury Shopping

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In a relatively short time period, consumers have gone from having to visit a store to touch and feel an item in order to purchase it, to purchasing off a website, to purchasing pre-production through sites like Kickstarter. Christine Carlton, founder and CEO of The September, discusses the evolution of the luxury consumer.

Continue reading →

Fashion and Status

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

With a Masters from Polimoda, one of the top 10 fashion institutes in the world, Trend Forecaster Emily Miller Palmquist discusses the evolution of fashion as status and how what we wear holds more meaning than taste.

Continue reading →

Who Makes the Trends?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Carly Stojsic, former Market Editor at Worth Global Style Network and internationally sought after Trend Forecaster, shares insights into how items become the “it thing” for a season and what exactly is a “trend” anyway. Carly is is known as being one of Canada’s...

Continue reading →