This week was my 2nd
LGFW up to date. I wonder why I never attended fashion weeks in past years. I've always been fashionable/ fashion-minded, but I've always just read fashion mag & fashion shows online & on tv only. Strangely it never occured to me before to attend a real life fashion show & now I'm attending plenty to make up all the years of missed show, lol! Second time around and I'm already used to the flow of everything especially having attended
FAT & other things this year. This time it was held at Heritage Court at the Ex. It's a slightly larger building than last time. They had more seats & the runway was slightly bigger/longer. There's many improvements of course, not that anything was bad last season. There's always room for improvement. The fact that there's more seats means that less people have to stand for the bigger shows. But there's probably more people attending each season as it grows. But still there were things that I liked about last time that got changed. There is only 1 ladies & men's washroom this time.
The volunteer uniforms got changed from the stylish blouse top to a white tshirt. But I'm sure the volunteers don't mind too much as they are having fun. I chatted with different people from bloggers, photographers, people working there & volunteers just to get people's perspective about things on fashion week such as how much fun they're having.
I didn't go to all the shows, not even most or half. I didn't attend Day1 because I wasn't in
LGFW mode yet so I missed the
Holt Renfrew show. Some one told me I missed the Holts bag full of goodies, but oh well I was actually tired & enjoying a sashimi bento box dinner.....I always have sushi cravings, it's a weakness of mine. I attended more than half of Day2 shows, last 2 of day3, half of Day4 & today Day5 I decided to stay home & rest.
I met Amanda Hunes from
HeartlessInk at the
OR:
Angela Chen fashion show, Colleen from
ClothesLineFinds while having coffee and Jay Strut from
SatisFashion while lining up to get into the
Romona Keveza fashion show. Last season I didn't talk to many people. I only remembering meeting the girl from
StyleMounties whose name I think is Mariya. I also met fashion photographer
Justin Wu in real life after I added him from a facebook suggestion several months ago. He resides in Paris and just happened to be in town during LGFW, lol.
As for swag, I got a great bottle of
Loreal:
Elnett Satin Hairspray & a couple of delicious
Nescafe Dolce Gusto samples which I'm saving to use when I get the coffee machine. Well I really could have gotten some other really cool stuff if I really wanted to, if I went to the early shows, but I didn't make a big enough effort I guess. So I'll try that next year. hehehe! Actually, I almost got a big bag of goodies at the OR Angela Chen show as I was sitting in the front row for one of the shows, but the people behind grabbed mine as I was about to sit down. Guess I should have said something. But oh well! I was kind of tired that day. A girl who got the goodie bag showed me what was inside which made me sad coz it was all good: 2 iphone4 cases, a book, a bottle of fuze, etc... sniff! But it was a very good fashion show, so I didn't mind too too much. sniff! I heard that last season's Angela Chen ORANGE show was very good & also had a very good gift bag. But I happened to be 15 min late for it although I rsvp'd & couldn't get in. The purpose being there is to enjoy the fashion shows, meet people and learn new things about fashion. Everything else is just the icing on the cake or sprinkles. Oh yeah, Ken gave me a 'token of love' the pink heart lightup Barbie pin/brooch which they gave out at the last fashion week but I didn't get one until now, so that made me really happy to finally get one to play with, lol. Oh yeah, free foto with Ken but you had to bring your own camera. But at the
Rowenta &
Skintimate booths, they had their own professional camera & photographer which they upload to facebook or email it to you & you could enter a contest for a prize.
Hey did I mention that
Nescafe Dolce Gusto offered free drinks, mostly coffee? But there was also hot chocolate & icetea. There was also a cash bar of course. The VIP lounge also had a cash bar, nope it wasn't openbar/free just in case you were wondering. Hey they actually persuaded me to want to buy the coffee machine. I haven't bought it yet, but soon. I'm craving it right now. That machine rocks! It's not just any simple coffee machine. It makes perfect smooth foamy cappuccino & other coffees/drinks. Even the icetea is so foamy/creamy looking that you think it contains milk when it doesn't.
I got my makeup done by
Loreal & yes it was free! On the first day I was there I got my makeup done by them. On the second day I didn't get anything done and then on the third day I got both makeup and hair done by the Loreal team. I overheard that they were having an afterparty just for the Loreal makeup artists & hair stylists, lol. They only work for Loreal during fashion week twice per year & for the rest of the time they work at a spa/salon or independently.
Last
LGFW when I was waiting in line to get my makeup done, I met
Pat McDonagh. I had no idea who she was as it was my first fashion week and I was pretty clueless about the local fashion industry. She was right in front of me so I kinda watched her get made up. I thought maybe she was a model since she is quite tall. She talked to me a little bit & that's when I found out that she's a designer because she said that some stuff she wanted to show in Toronto had been sent to Moscow by accident. After she left, the makeup artist told me who she was & then when I went home I googled her. LoL! So now I guess she is one of my favourite designers just because I met her in person. Hey, why not? I did take a look at her stuff online & it does seem to fit my own personal style. She asked me if I had a business card, & unfortunately I haven't printed any new ones yet & had none on me. Dough! Someday, one day when I see her again, I'll make sure I have one. NOTE TO SELF: print more business cards asap, lol!
Oh, I also happened to have seen
Jian Ghomeshi right after the Joe Fresh show with his girlfriend as they were leaving. I forgot to say "hi" to his gf too so I hope she didn't feel like I was ignoring her. All I said was "hi & what's up
Jian?" Well, I attended his interview thing at Ryerson a week or two before too, but didn't really get to talk to him or anything then. When I see him next time I'll have a little more to say. I forgot to ask him how he enjoyed the show & what shows he saw, etc... Well I didn't want to bug him too much either. I felt kinda bad that I was talking to him & forgot to say hi to his gf. It's kinda hard when you see someone you didn't expect to see & want to talk to them & can't think of what else to say. haha. Yeah his gf was quite pretty too. Ok, if he ever reads this I'm doomed, lol. I still haven't uploaded the photos & videos from his Ryerson talk/interview thing because I still need to get back my camera memory from someone. I hope that I can get it back & not lose all the footage. That would be horrible. My previous
LGFW footage was on it too, & that's why I wasn't able to blog or post the fotos.
I didn't have any other celeb sightings unless I did see ones that I don't recognize/know of. It's good that way coz then you won't feel intimidated when you do meet someone famous if you don't know who they are yet & then you can talk to them normally w/o feeling awkward. Yes it would suck to be too nervous & then you can't have a genuine conversation with them & get to know the person. But then it all comes with practice. If you've never met a celeb in your life, it's easy to feel intimidated. But if you are used to seeing them, then it's a lot easier. But famous or not famous it's very nice to meet new people. I like to talk to everybody who's friendly, but not scary, lol. But eventually I'll need to know who's who if I want to continue working in the fashion industry here.
As for the fashion shows, ok ok no more space here. I'll have to put them in further posts. So stay tuned for more to come!
P.S. I really admire the MEDIA group camping out in the little cube box section where they eat, drink, have their cameras & laptops. They don't really go outside as they have to save their beautiful spot for taking the best shots & they have to get someone to save their spot when going to the WC in b/w shows. I know I could do that too if I had to, but since I don't I'm glad to have a nice comfy chair. Maybe if I take of Photography professionally. Some of them are from
BlogTO,
TheStar, etc... & many are Freelancers who submit their stuff to different mediums. Oh wait, they do have chairs the photogs & videographers. Most of them have those cool little plastic foldable chairs which I think is cool to have. But I think for those Media guys & gals, they get the most satisfaction when they get to see their hard work published. Hey it's cozy & most of them recognize one another anyway from previous seasons. It's a pretty big group of them! At least someone offered them bottled water b/c they can't go out to get free coffee outside. Well they could if they really need if they get someone to save their spot, but they can only do that once or twice throughout the day.
http://www.amazon.com/Barbie-Collector-Hello-Fashion-Culture/dp/B000PD7UOQ
