Paul Hardy. Photo by Dave Pike. What we learned at L'Oreal Fashion Week: 1. Right now, orange is the new ____. Sunkist hues were spotted on everyone from Fashion Television’s Jeanne Beker to starlet-intern Shenae Grimes (dressed for the week by Nada Yousif), while Orangina girls costumed in head-to-toe tangelo handed out bottles of the it-coloured fizz. ("We’re totally just taking these to mix with vodka,” said a street-stylish pair of photographers.) 2. And......

Snappy Answers runs every Saturday afternoon. Send your questions, be they tough or trivial, to snappyanswers@torontoist.com. Dear Torontoist, Why is there no column this weekend? Without Saturday Snappy Answers, it might as well be Monday! —You, the Heartbroken Reader Dear Reader, Because the only question we were asked is what we were wearing to Fashion Week. Want answers? Ask questions!......

Carlie Wong. Photo by Mike Campbell. It only takes three to make a trend, so when we spotted that third pair of Converse (yes, sneakers) in the tents yesterday, we knew exhaustion was en vogue. Hump day at L'Oreal Fashion Week had us practically mainlining caffeine to fend off fashion fatigue. By evening, even the most eagle-eyed weight watchers were too tired to resist sugar-high slices of tiramisu cake in the media lounge. One......

Preloved. Photo by Sagittarius_Canada on Flickr. Music is to fashion what cigarettes are to vodka: one makes you want more of the other. The right song elevates a runway show, heightening moments of desire and brightening the snapshots in memory. Opening the second day of L'Oreal Fashion Week, the Preloved show gave a perfect example of the sound-look synaesthetic. Designer Peter Friesen and founder Julia Grieve lost their shop to the Queen West fire......

Joe Mimran and Coco Rocha. Photo by Darryl Natale. Have you spotted Coco yet? If we had a dollar for every time we heard (or, okay, asked) that question yesterday, we could have paid for our media pass a dozen times over. Forget the Misshapes and MTV faces—the only VIP anyone wanted to see on the first day of L’Oreal Fashion Week was 19-year-old model and Meisel muse Coco Rocha. Has there ever been......

Photo by Sarah Nicole Prickett. We're getting tipsy, and it has nothing to do with St. Patrick: it's bubbly, not beer, to celebrate Day One of L'Oréal Fashion Week. In Nathan Phillips Square, the tents are back and 10,000 square feet bigger—all the better to accommodate those outsize egos and handbags to match (it is the fashion industry, after all). If you're going, pack your own big bag with stylish survival gear: digital camera,......

Photo by Arline Malakian. Courtesy of Lucian Matis. Lucian Matis's Fall 2008 line premieres at L'Oréal Fashion Week on March 18, but the designer is oddly calm: "I’m not nervous at all," he says in his Bloorcourt Village studio. "It's almost like I don't know the show's coming." It’s a surprising response from a designer who will be watched closely after having broken through into Canadian consciousness: his work has been showcased on Canada's......

Winterlicious is back with 130 restaurants participating. For $15 or $20 for lunch and $25 or $35 for dinner, foodies get a three-course meal including appetizer, main, and dessert. Too bad most restaurants play it safe by offering the standard soup or salad, chicken or beef, and cake or ice cream. Although the food is rarely bad, boring food at nearly $50 a head (after taxes and gratuity) is pretty hard to swallow. Luckily,......

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset. Slip into Boutique LeTrou (940 Queen Street West) on any given afternoon and odds are, you'll be hello darling'ed......

Toronto native Lucian Matis, 28, landed in second place behind Evan Biddell, a 24-year-old designer from Saskatoon, on the finale of Project Runway Canada last night. Matis, Biddell, and third-placer Marie Genevieve Cyr showed ten-piece collections at Toronto's L'Oréal Fashion Week in October as the final challenge of the reality show. The runway shows were performed in front of an audience and evaluated by the Runway judges: supermodel Iman, Elle Canada Editor Rita Silvan, and......

Left: Lite-Brite satin at Nada Yousif; right: rainbow-striped dress, also Nada Yousif. The last day of Fashion Week's Spring 2008 collections brought the first taste of summer fashion (unless you count swimwear as fashion, which you shouldn't). Twenty-three-year-old designer Nada Yousif made her runway debut with a collection so full of candy colours (cherry, grape, orange, sour blue raspberry) that it made the phrase "bright young talent" too easy a pun. Yousif played with......

The closing look in the Stephen Trigueros collection. On a slow day in the tents, with attendees falling into a lull between Tuesday's big-name shows and Friday's closing festivities, attention drifted from the runway to the rumour mill. All week, tales have been spinning of a certain VIP's erratic behaviour and, shall we say, unorthodox face-powdering techniques. "Look at her eyes!" insisted a dandyish attendee wearing a VIP pass over his pinstriped vest. "She's,......

“This feels like Career Fair at business school,” snarked Fashion Verbatim blogger Adrian Corsin as he surveyed the logo-swathed lobby at Fashion Week yesterday. He was right. The main tent is a hive of promotional activity, with t-shirted workers offering everything from chewing gum to makeovers, and the incessant buzz is beginning to grate. Obviously, it would be impossible to have Fashion Week without sponsors—plus, no one’s griping about free Prosecco. But is it too......

Photos by Sarah Prickett. Above: Vancouver's Ginch Gonch Underwear, first show. It rained an ocean yesterday, but still not enough to take the shine out of the first day of shows at Toronto—sorry, L’Oréal—Fashion Week. While passersby trudged past Nathan Phillips Square with hoods up and boots on, the city’s dedicated fashionistas strode into the great white tent in a series of inadequate (but unfailingly chic) jackets and perfectly impractical pumps. "My feet are......

L’Oréal Fashion Week officially ends today, but for all intents and purposes it's already over. While work commitments kept us from attending most events, we've been following news coverage keenly and have assembled the following recap. Clap Your Hands, Say "Meh" Fall/Winter 2007, as a whole, left buyers happy as there was plenty of "wearable" (also known as sellable), yet less-than-visionary clothes. As a result, the fashion media was underwhelmed. Off-the-record, journalists covering the event......

L’Oréal Fashion Week kicked off this morning with an 11 a.m. press conference at Queen's Park. Seems the Ontario government excludes fashion from its definition of culture. So members of the Fashion Design Council of Canada want fashion visionaries to get the same recognition as their colleagues in art, dance, theatre and music. Clearly Toronto Fashion Week isn't the same kind of high-octane glamathon as Paris or Milan. In fact, most shows will be......

The KNOWdresscode Design Collective (KDC) presents “Virgin Territory,” a fashion show celebrating fresh hot local designer talent. In conjunction with Toronto’s Alternative Fashion Week, the show will take place on Thursday, September 29, at Touch Lounge (499 King St. West). Founded in 2004 by Niamh McManus, Cat Essiambre and Irene Stickney, the KDC is a group comprised of 15 up-and-coming designers – who get their inspiration from Karl Lagerfeld – are all about creativity......

While another L’Oreal Fashion Week is coming to an end for high-tone fashonistas, average fashion civilians will want to check out tonight's final off-site show. From 7-10pm, at Clint Roenisch Gallery on Queen West it’s a preview of Lydia K. Designs’ spring line (which means you don’t have to wait 6 months for the collection to hit stores). Lydia Klenck studied textiles at way-cool NSCAD down East, and her handmade pieces are equal parts Frida......

Today marks the "100% Canadian Cool" beginning of L'Oreal Fashion Week. Sensibly titled Toronto Fashion Week last year, the fashion-forward event will include trend-setters such as Ula Zukowska, Beckerman, Jeanne Beker and Shinan Govani. Unfortunately for the non-industry types, it's mostly media/special guest/invite only events - like the screening of Fernando Meirelles produced Brasil documentary on Thursday. Introductory remarks by "his worship" David Miller, however, are open to the public. Read more of the sked.......