Matinee Fashion Foundation Awards 2002

The MatinÃ©e 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. JosÃ©e Dufour adds some panache QuÃ©becoise 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 AnimÃ© 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 GagnÃ© 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