Fashion Art Toronto

Day Two at Fashion Art Toronto, and the CITYscapes urban culture theme hits home in an unexpected way – a power cut. Backstage, however, it’s Keep Calm And Carry On, everyone hurtling forward under the show’s own momentum with designers, stylists, models and makeup artists dressing, fixing, applying and adjusting under the less-than-soft glow of backup floodlights. Catwalk rehearsals glide through the few gaps in the mass of preparation which takes on the feeling of a military manoeuvre as shoeboxes are stacked and rifled-through like ammunition while models line up for final inspection, war paint glistening, before marching through the stage breach. Random blasts of swirling hairspray haze dissipate in the air, defiant echoes of fashion industry normalcy, while cosmetics are painted by digital lantern light: cellphones, sometimes two at a time, held outwards at eye-level to compensate. In the war for style, a blackout is just another obstacle on the assault course.

The United Nations of Fashion Week

Fashion Week in Toronto, like any Fashion Week, can easily live up to its industry clichés of high luster, opaque hierarchies and camp seriousness. Who-would-wear-that warmly meets who-could-afford-that, as indulgent sartorialism and unbridled materialism run amok in the tents on David Pecaut Square, under the befuddled pastel gaze of Metro Hall and its 10% across-the-board budget cuts.

Don’t be fooled. This is the U.N. General Assembly of Fashion, where delegations from the four corners of the industry gather to present, deliberate and vote on their world. Runway collections, like politics, are mostly ephemeral and constantly cycling. But the people, the representatives of their style states, are the enduring feature and ultimately what Fashion Week is really about.

Everyone brings their agenda, or at least stands up to be counted among the family of nations, appearing in furs and flowing locks like envoys from far-flung regions, or with a duffle coat across the shoulders as if just off the train from the nearest border. Emissaries from the Superpowers – confident in stride with sky-high heels and wedges, trim leather jackets, Luis Vuitton clutches and razor-sharp suits – make waves and gather armloads of knowing (or is it fearful?) glances. The Fashion Forwards, fervent and sincere in their adoption of trends before they’re trending, mingle with representatives from Retroland sporting side-parts and On The Waterfront coats.

Subcults – serene goths clad in midnight black with flourishes of the occult; swashbuckling glam rockers wrapped in voluminous scarves – nestle resolutely on the fringes of the scene, like Lichtenstein or Monaco. Middle Power ambassadors pick their way through the crowds, gently advancing the classic look in brogues, cashmere v-necks, trench coats, pearls and billowy dresses. Always somewhere in sight are the peoples of the neutral nations, quietly content in their baseball caps, hoodies, scuffed boots, big cardigans and little touches of something. Designers, models and media stars – the career diplomats of the institution – coast through the front doors and out into the city, enigmatic and always with-purpose, left alone but constantly admired.

At Fashion Week the wars are verbal (and often not even audible beyond the internet) and everyone gets a seat at the table for the price of a ticket. The glamour is obvious, but it’s of a grinding sort, the kind that keeps a world system chugging along. What matters here is the community of style. The red carpet is peppered with autumn leaves, and the softly spinning gears of International Relations never looked so chic.

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Thoroughbred Horse Racing

Oh sure there’s the classic glory of the winner’s circle, the confident strides of well-heeled owners and the bugler’s scarlet-coated reveille. But then there’s also the wagering area: the other face of the racetrack, the one where sport meets folly or fantasy or frenzy and people grip their programs a little too tightly. The off-track betting zone, with its banks of TV monitors showing far-away races and encampments of parked wives and girlfriends, starts to feel a bit like how purgatory might be if you linger for a while.

Bet receipts—souvenirs of disappointment abandoned by their holders once their last fluids of promise have been drained—dot the floor, or collect at the corners in little outcast colonies. They end up down there in different ways: crumpled and hurled with spite; solemnly released like a burial at sea; stripped, torn and confettied as ruthlessly as incriminating evidence. It takes only a few races before the cleaning staff lose control.

The grandstands, however, are a great place to be, and none of the indoor tension drifts outside where sunshine drenches the crowd. Races are distant and brief but the atmosphere is relaxed with a retro feel, and the dash to the finish line always elicits a thrill even if you don’t have anything riding on it.

Down at the paddock, where jockeys and their charges are on show before each race, the serious gamblers lean on the railings and scout for things only they can see. But families are there as well, and the outriders (who act as mounted referees) are happy to chat for a bit. There’s always a moment of tranquility as the horses trot past on the way to the oval.

Wander trackside and you can mingle with trainers and overhear the anticipatory conversations of riders’ friends who often holler louder than anyone else when a race nears its end. You can even shake a jockey’s hand or get an autograph as they leave the circuit; hardly anybody does though. They file past almost unnoticed, despite the cheerful heraldry of their jackets which seem plucked from the Silver Age of comic book heroes, and every one of them has an air of composed contentment.

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