You may have noticed the sharp rise in coffee cups littering our streets, which can only mean one thing: it’s Roll Up The Rim time at Tim Hortons once again. When Torontoist was young and starry-eyed, we used to dream of unrolling our cup and finding that we had won a car or a boat or some awesome camping gear. (What ever happened to that prize anyway? It was always the best one.) After......

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......

Feeling “Christmassy” yet? We aren’t either (we've just assumed you weren’t, apologies if you are, or something), and there isn’t that much on at the cinema yet to start ramping up the festive joy. It’s a Wonderful Life is showing at the Fox starting tomorrow and Bad Santa is going to be on at the Revue this Wednesday. To be completely honest, if you’re going to check out anything at those cinemas, we recommend......

December is party season, but what if you don't feel like dancing? There's more to holiday dressing than disco-ball metallics and electro-shock hues. Indeed, in today's ever-flashier scene, you're most likely to stand out in a standby—the little black dress. Luckily for you nineties types, local label Common Cloth is a step ahead on the road back to minimalism. For their current fall/winter collection, scissor sisters Melanie Talbot and Kristina Bozzo cut refined, modern......

Tomorrow night, scores of arts collectives and community groups will be putting on impressive exhibits, performances, and workshops as part of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche. The Toronto Public Space Committee thought it would be neat to do something, too, but guess which word in the event title made the TPSC uncomfortable. So instead they bring you noncorporatized Not Blanche, "a pwyc all-night public-space thing," straight outta the Brunswick Theatre from 11:00 p.m. Saturday through 3:00......

Toronto’s DIY fashionistas, independent designers, eclectic personalities and thrift store scavengers get a chance to flaunt the city’s indie fashion credentials this Wednesday at the Cadillac Lounge. The latest issue of Broken Pencil, dedicated to the aesthetics, culture and history of indie chic (and haircuts!), just arrived in stores. To mark the launch, the arts magazine will be hosting an all out celebration of indie style, including its first ever Indie Style Fashion Contest. Party-goers......

You've only got a week and a half left to apply for the coolest job ever: a Torontoist contributor! The deadline is Tuesday, July 3. (If you applied and haven't received a response yet, hold tight—we're getting to everyone, but we've got like a thousand applications to go through.) In addition to the positions already listed in the hiring post, we're also looking for a copy editor—someone to look over every word of all......

So, last season—sorry, cycle—of Canada's Next Top Model was kinda "meh" compared to the Tyra-shoutin', model-faintin', drag-walkin' original. Host Tricia Helfer seemed to be reprising her other role as a robot Cylon, but one with consistently dwindling batteries, and the season one production values were also a bit low-wattage. The new host CHUM has whisked-in to save the day is ANTM fan favourite and Toronto-bred Jay Manuel, who dashingly wears shirts for promo shots......

Less than a week after the Toronto Star wrote an article profiling Style in Progress' two year-old Bell box project, the box chosen for the paper's photo (shown left) has gone brown. Initially, we believed it must have been some kind of miscommunication between Bell workers, who painted over the boxes believing they had been vandalized by graffiti. A scratch test revealed the truth to be even worse: the painted doors have been stolen......

OMG! This week sees the release of Kickin' It Old Skool, a Jamie Kennedy vehicle. He plays a breakdancer who awakes from a 20-year coma and something that Jamie Kennedy probably considers hilarity ensues. We here at Torontoist Towers are astounded at the idea that somebody greenlighted a film with Jamie Kennedy in it. Absoultely gob-smacked. Moving on, Stone Cold Steve Austin plays Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Running Man On An Island (The Condemned)......

We here at Torontoist are always fans of new campaigns to boost our fair city's reputation, but the problem is that most of these campaigns are, shall we say, kind of pathetic. No, actually -- not "kind of." They're just pathetic. Almost universally they cast Toronto as a handy convenient replacement for some other city you'd like to go to. "Toronto! It's almost like Paris, and you don't have to spend money on a transoceanic......

Photograph of Rick Santorum conceding defeat with his family by Gene J. Puskar/AP The -ists this week had politics on the brain. And what goes better with politics? Partying-- that's two great tastes in one. Oh, and Kevin Federline...can't forget about Kevin Federline. That's three great tastes in one. -Bostonist discussed two big state issues-- what sort of math constitutes a marriage and what kind of alcohol can be sold in most grocery stores.......

When I was thirteen, I went to visit my aunt and uncle in Halifax. In the maritimes nine years ago, the Atlantic Superstores were way bigger than anything in Toronto, and they sold clothes! Needless to say, I was impressed - that is, until I tried on several pairs of ill-fitting pants and realized that Superstore clothes sucked. But my, how things have changed! Joseph Mimran, "the man synonymous with Canadian fashion," has launched a......

God, we're so sick of Snakes on a Plane that we want to kill anyone and everyone that makes a "something on a something" joke. But then we realized that there was no way we could ever win this fight, and, hell, if you can't beat them, we might as well join them. And with that, you have the theme of this weeks' Gothamist network post. Austinist makes it easy for us, with Candidate......

Torontoist was at the Bubble Battle at Old City Hall this afternoon... But in true Canadian Style, what was termed a battle was more of a peaceful sudsy sit-in. For more pictures of the event check out all the Flickr and Robonto action. For a glimpse of the future of bubbles, check out Zubbles. [photo:Bubble Sit-In TO - Robonto]......

Jam packed day today! Torontoist Daily Agenda June 6, 2006 8am - Hearty breakfast at Country Style Donuts (666 Millwood) 9am - Pick up flooring samples from Armstrong Floor Service (666 Spadina Avenue) 10am - Appointment with lawyer Chartered Accountant: Spiegel & Associates (666 Wilson Avenue) 12pm - Lunch with Keyes at Korea House (666 Bloor West) 1pm - Appointment for film work at Accent Entertainment (666 Queen West) 2pm - Coffee with Grassi at......

Graf artists at Style In Progress' Resurface proved that they're at least as hardcore as the postal service on this rainy Saturday.......

When public debates flare up over whether graffiti is art or vandalism, the heat they generate doesn't even come close to that of the fires that rage within the culture itself over whether art on legal walls, painted in a graffiti style is "real" graffiti. The one thing graffiti opponents and practitioners seem to agree on is the defining element of risk and illegality that is central to the art and act we call graf.......

This mysterious bench appeared at the North West corner of Queen & Northcote sometime between 11 am on Tuesday March 21, and 9:30 am, Friday March 24th. There's no streetcar or bus stop at this corner, no cafe patio, no real reason anyone might want to sit here. It faces away from the Style In Progress grafiti on the wall behind it. It has ridges spaced approximately ass-width apart to prevent anyone from sitting......

Izakaya: All Style, No Seasoning Izakaya has TOist seeing red. For months, we’d walked by and heard of the fancy new kid on the block, but were afraid to go, because of its emphasis on design and seeming lack of Japanese authenticity and street cred. (TOist doesn’t like inauthentic food of any kind, unless it does so with an ironic wink and a nod.). But hunger and curiosity proved to be our demise. In a......

Austin's American Analog Set have been turning out gorgeously hushed and hypnotic drone pop for a decade now, but with their latest album Set Free, they've now got a local connection - it's been released in North America by Toronto's own Arts & Crafts label. AmAnSet found themselves homeless when Tiger Style went out of business following the release of their 2003 album Promise Of Love, but that timing was fortuitous as frontman Andrew Kenny......

Canadians have long had to subside on a steady diet of imported celebrity tabloids, but Torstar has decided it's time to change all that, and cash in. The Torstar tabloid, which will hit newstands October 3rd, will be saddled with the unfortunate name Weekly Scoop. But hey, what's in a name? Look how well the shabbily-titled Life & Style is doing. Vivian Vassos, formerly managing editor of Flare, will take up the challenge of producing......

There’s a new pair of style hounds in Hogtown. Jak & Jil is the most recent addition to Toronto’s online style pantheon, and once you get past the site's unfortunate name, there’s enough eye candy to keep clockwatchers entertained for at least one afternoon procrastination session. In particular, TOist loves the Personal Style pages, featuring the good, the bad, and the in-between perpetrated by fashion civilians snapped in flagrante: shopping, do-gooding and party-hopping. Also: esoteric......

It's easy to avoid The Game and Fifty Cents. Likewise for Nickelback. It's even pretty easy to stay away from Thornley and the Barenaked Ladies. They don't bother us, and we don't bother them. But there are some bands, SOME bands, that bring us to the brink of violent disgust; it's almost beyond hatred. One example that is often played out here on Mercredi Mixtape is our distaste for Las Vegas corporate rockers The Killers.......

Tonight the textile museum presents a moderated discussion about Canadian design, to coincide with the show Thor Hansen: Crafting a Canadian Style. Hansen, the Danish-born craft artist, made his mark in the mid-1950s, creating art works largely for the corporate sector. Rachel Gotlieb, the show's curator, is co-author of Design in Canada: Fifty Years from Teakettles to Task Chairs. Since TOist's understanding of Canadian design begins with Karim and ends with Rashid, we may go,......

Fashionistas, thrifters and all-around shopping enthusiasts came together at the Toronto Vintage Clothing and Textile Show on Saturday in pursuit of that one, or two, or three great find(s).  The show was held at the Enoch Turner Schoolhouse in downtown Toronto for its first 12 years, then moved to Edwards Gardens last year, and this year found itself in the CBC Broadcast Centre.  The large atrium accommodated over twenty of Ontario’s top vintage clothing and......

This week marks the countdown to next weekend’s opening of the much-anticipated and much-debated Massive Change exhibit at the AGO. Everyone has criticized Mau’s bizarrely utopian and woolly optimism. Mau’s 2001 book, Life Style, focused on shaping design’s role in individual lives, recognizing that ‘lifestyle’ in the post-war period had come to be defined solely in terms of consumptive patterns rather than class or occupation. The argument was loosely patched together by brilliant aesthetic design......

All these Mixtapes and you barely even know me! So here I've cut-and-paste my Blogger Profile for you. Name: Torontoist Josh Location: Canada Mood: Dumb Now Playing: NaS, "You Know My Style" Fave Movies: Withnail and I, Do the Right Thing, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Fave Books: Straight From the Heart, the Autobiography of Jean Chretien Fave Music: Townes Van Zandt, Moldy Peaches, Cold Crush, that one Culture Club song Likes: Pizza, sleepovers, dissing people......

It's as if there's a Heather Mallick doppelganger writing in the online pages of the aging lefty writespot, Rabble.ca. This Heather Mallick is not at all like the one you may come across in that dorkily-named consumer column, Bought. (Put it together with the Globe's other dorkily-named column, Noticed, and the Times' irritatingly-named Consumed, and Possessed, and you have the beginnings of a middle age Harlequin brand-whore series on your hands.) But over at Rabble,......