Shine OnToronto Fashion Incubator celebrates 25th anniversary with Barbie
Last night, Canada's glamourati mingled at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto to celebrate Toronto Fashion Incubator's 25th anniversary and to see which Canadian designers would walk away with two big cash prizes.
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The Toronto Fashion Incubator is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting and nurturing Canadian fashion designers and entrepreneurs.
For one of the fashion show prizes, TFI partnered with Barbie to select 25 top Canadian designers for a Barbie-inspired fashion challenge and the chance to win $10,000.
The winner was Sarah Nicol -- a Thunder Bay native -- who wowed the judges with her Sar Couture designs of an edgy black, white and pink dress, modeled by "Degrassi" actress Meghan Heffern.
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But Nicol wasn't the only one who impressed. Designers such as VAWK, Arthur Mendonça, Little Pink Dress and Eugenia Designs sent 25 "art as fashion" pieces down the runway. The models were some of Canada's brightest talents such as supermodel Stacey McKenzie, actress Kristin Booth (who just recently became a new mom,) ET Canada's Cheryl Hickey, etalk's Tanya Kim and WWE star Trish Stratus.
Chair member Ben Barry spoke to how important TFI is for supporting young Canadian talent.
"There have never been so many opportunities to launch a fashion business [...] If our fashion entrepreneurs are to succeed in this new environment, they need TFI to continue to be the business nucleus of their emerging firms" says Barry. "TFI is needed now more than ever."
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R&B singer Jully Black MC'd the evening, which was attended by Canada's most prominent fashionistas including TFI New Labels judges Flare editor-in-chief, Lisa Tant, Toronto Star writer Derick Chetty, TFI president and designer David Dixon and TFI's honorory gala chair Suzanne Rogers, wife of cable scion Edward Rogers.
Guests were also treated to a second fashion show, the TFI New Labels fashion design competition. After sending bold black leather jackets, tailored blazers and camel hair wool coats down the runway, Edmonton designer Sid Neigum walked away with the Suzanne Rogers Award for Most Promising New Label and a $25,000 cash prize. He beat out fellow young designers and labels Jameson Kane, [Blak] i and Patrick Larrivée.
Established in 1987 as the world's first official "fashion incubator", the TFI model has been adopted by cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, Melbourne, Auckland, Amsterdam, and Milan.
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