Fashion is an attitude

On April 21–25th, 2015 I attended Toronto Arts & Fashion Week.
Here is a recap of years past as I explain why I find this event irresistible.

In the corner of the hall dancing by herself is Foxy, swaying in time to the music. Today she’s carrying a single rose, paired with a blood red dress and strings of pearls at her throat that shine iridescent in the darkness just before the spotlights fire up on the runway.

I remember that yesterday she was in a classic black dress, and tomorrow, inspired by the collections of latex and bone, I gather she will be clad in vinyl and PVC.

I keep looking for her, day after day, wondering what she will wear next.

It's the third year that I’ve attended Toronto Arts & Fashion Week. It’s an independent break out from the fashion industry standards, more like an art experiment crossed with a theatre show. There are runways and musical acts like a regular fashion show, but at the end of the evenings it tends to veer into the bizarre and offbeat. Canadian fresh-out-of-school talent share the limelight with seasoned designers and last year there was a Montreal contingent due to the cancellation of Montreal Fashion Week.

As Foxy dances, a burly security guy approaches her apologetically.

She asks preemptively, “What’d I do now?”

“You have to stop dancing. You can stand there, but the dancing is too distracting.”

She’s been told off a couple times already, but she can’t stop. She’s having too much fun. I grin at her and we share a look. Fashion is serious business.

And often incredibly boring. I sit in my folding chair behind two rows of fashionistas, freelance writers, and gadflies about town and I overhear fragments of conversations I’m not a part of, not knowing if I’m dressed up enough. The ambient music is occasionally brilliant, but also grinding and exhausting. The people here, many of them have their show face on: you can’t talk to them, you can’t really read their expressions and you never know if you’re in their way. It’s a lot of hurry up and wait.

As I wait, I wonder to myself why I’m here. In my jeans and t-shirt, I don’t fit in. I only started coming to this show as a way to break out of my shell, to try putting myself in a different environment, uncomfortable as it may be. I tell myself, in one week of boredom, if I see one show, one exhibit, one person, or one piece of clothing that makes me excited—then it’s all worth it.

It’s hard to describe the moment when the lights go out into pitch darkness, and the next moment when the blinding white stage lights pop on. The temperature changes, my pupils contract.

Foxy stops dancing.

I was tempted to talk with her, but let’s face it, we were both too engrossed in the art, the atmosphere, the creativity, the focused intensity: the show itself had enveloped us and I didn’t dare let go.

I never got her real name. But maybe that’s all for the better, because I know this year, I’ll be looking for her off the runway, just a little to the side. Always dancing while we wait.

It’s hard to pick the gems out of the rough, but at FAT, there are diamonds.