Deciphering a designer's inspiration from the catwalk can take some serious combing through the fashion archives. By day's end yesterday, though, it was clear the era of choice was the 1960s for many ready-to-wear presenters at Toronto Fashion Week. Skinny modish suits were top of mind. The blouse too, another favourite of the period, was a hot commodity as were a stream of other sixties classics, from swing jackets and sailor pants to fedoras and super-long scarves and toques.
Stephanie Wierzbicki, who debuted her Fantine collection, said in her front-row media crib notes that she was influenced by Marc Jacobs and Stella McCartney. Both of those designers have a fondness for the 1960s, so it came as no surprise then when Wierzbicki's day dresses made quiet reference to that bygone time. There was a little Lolita-like slip of a dress in cream with soft gold polka dots that looked made for Twiggy in mind. A more wearable and salable number was all black, full in the skirt and nipped to the waist, in a beautifully textured and semi-sheer black fabric with vertical bands of velvet sewn in for interest.
Fantine's knee-length cape and swing-backed little cropped jacket with bracelet sleeves, both in winter white, looked also a touch sixties, but very relevant for the present.
It was a bit more glam at the fall 2006/7 fall show that Andy The-Anh staged. Definitely chic were the designer's skinny rocker pantsuits. One was lean and grey — a hot alternative for any ubercool financier — but softened by a floaty grey-on-nude toile blouse beneath. Another number was black on black with black rose embroidery on the small of the jacket back.
Even The-Anh's fur pieces worked a few sixties details like belled sleeves and bateau necklines. But there was nothing retro about those decadent items. A lofty grey fox shrug with those dramatic sleeves, for example, layered over a white shirt and pegged grey flannel skirt. The effect: cosmopolitan and superchic.
David Dixon nodded to the decade with capes, cropped pants, toques and scarves and superlong gloves, but then spun it for the here and now. His navy mohair capelet was the perfect counterpoint to a silver-grey full skirt and a pair of cropped charcoal trousers.
Military effects in pockets and epaulettes, and sailor-front detailing on skirts and pants also suggested an Yves Saint Laurent-clad sixties muse, but Dixon executed the details so deftly that one was just left with the compulsion not to reconsider the vintage relics, but just to head out and shop.
