Matinee Fashion Foundation Awards 2002

The Matinée Fashion Foundation awards show placed Canada’s best designers and their designs side-by-side, not only presenting a cross-section from coast-to coast, but also rounding out Toronto Fashion Week with those not showing their collections. The event was a celebration of the highest order (wouldn’t you celebrate if someone handed you a fat check?).

Vancouver designer Hajnalka Mandula’s chaotically stitched cotton blends with distressed felt proves that the avant-garde is emanating from the other side of the Rockies. Christine Morton is another established Vancouverite whose luxurious silk lingerie either serenades in moon pastels or roars with speak-easy decadence. You have to love RozeMerie Cuevas‘ red dress and Kamkyl’s take on the boho floral shirt. Josée Dufour adds some panache Québecoise into her designs, giving life to a delicately quilted shawl. It figures to see Montrealer Marie-Chantal Le Breton for Myco Anna, the star of last season’s Designer Debut at Montreal Fashion Week. Her sense of line and colour is hallucinogenic, and it brings a bit of cartoon Animé into the realities of dressing.

Where have you been Nadya Toto and Ali Davoudi? Apparently, busy designing the sexiest pants this side of the Atlantic. Mariouche Gagné of Harricana is not afraid to put an argyle spin on her fur fancies. Karen Pottle made the triumphant voyage from Newfoundland, representing all of Maritime fashion with her resin-treated outerwear. Philippe Dubuc makes a courtesy appearance, before taking his dandy men’s wear to the Parisian footlights. In the list of who we couldn’t live without, - Wayne Clark and Pat McDonagh.

Daniel Cox, Fashion Editor
Marek Wlazlo, Photographer