Fashion Art Toronto (FAT) is Toronto’s longest-running fashion week that provides a much-needed platform to up-and-coming Canadian designers.
With diversity and sustainability at the forefront, the 2021 show celebrated the talents of more than 30 designers, giving them the opportunity to explore their creativity and traverse the fashion landscape.
The best from FAT are highlighted below.
L’Uomo Strano
L’Uomo Strano by Mic. Carter presents an incredible theme of blended reality, which corresponds to the lack of boundaries between screens and real life.
Inspired by adaptability during COVID-19, and exploring the themes of isolation and emotional discomfort, his collection “I Hope This Email Finds You Well” is curated keeping the societal/behavioural nature of humans in mind.
The collection can be divided into two designs; one being large, surreal, and “having almost violent shapes,” and the other being skimpy with “hot girl summer vibes” to visualize how humans have ameliorated.
Jair Castillo
With designs that are said to focus on creating new realities in the chaos, Jair Castillo‘s “The Silhouettes” collection exhibits garments with abstract shapes and forms put together to express confusion and organized mayhem.
Castillo creates an intersection between his background in fashion and music and discusses the complexities of growing up by experimenting with shapes, textures and exploring Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer’s non-conventional music. The Toronto-born designer expresses love for story building through design and garment construction and wants his designs to be open to unfiltered audience interpretation.
Patrick Salonga,3_3_4_7 and Remark
FAT presented three upcycled collections to encourage sustainable clothing. The collections by the three designers were showcased at Value Village Reuse and Recycling Centre.
Patrick Salonga created a novel collection of upcycled denim, sourced from the Value Village itself. With Salonga’s primary colour theme being straightforward (shades of blue and white), he captures the audience with innovative cuts and asymmetrical shapes, all while being sustainable.
Remark exhibited distinctive, one-of-a-kind designs curated primarily with graphics, slogans and prints. This repurposed line was also locally sourced from Toronto’s Value Village.
3_3_4_7 was the last of the upcycled lines showcased at the Value Village. This size-inclusive collection provides the fabric with new extended life by repurposing them to create fascinating patchwork and vibrant patterns.
