Toronto Fashion Week Spring 2013: Chloe Comme Parris

Elle Canada - The Elle Word

October 18th, 2012

Toronto Fashion Week Spring 2013: Chloé Comme Parris at The Collections

by Laura deCarufel

The finale walk at Chloe Comme Parris.

I love Chloé Comme Parris, the line designed by Toronto sisters Chloé and Parris Gordon. And I’m not alone—the crowd at The Burroughes building last night (where shows under the umbrella name “The Collections” are being held) was buzzing about what the Gordons would come up with for Spring 2013. The answer was a romantic collection punked up with edgy touches—think patterned hot pants and sweet mini dresses dressed up with hardware.

“We always start with something historical contrasted with something modern,” Parris explained after the show. This season, the duo’s starting point was Assyrian costume to which they added inspiration from Venice Beach to give the collection what Parris terms a “badass twist.” (Parris went to Venice Beach after the collection was finished “to make sure we had everything right!”) Parris is CCP’s jewellery and hardware designer, while Chloé focuses on the clothing and textiles (and their mom designs their prints.)

“We try to utilize both our strengths and put it into one cohesive collection,” Chloé says. “Ultimately, we want the line to be about the merging of us as sisters.” She continues: “We’re all about hard and soft, masculine, feminine, push and pull.”

One of my favourite looks for Spring 2013 was a long white dress printed with a gorgeous grey, seemingly abstract print. In fact, the print was a flower drawn by the Gordons’ mom in university.

“She did a whole series of them on canvas,” Chloé says. “We saw all the references to flowers in Assyrian culture and we immediately said, ‘We’re using these!’ We blew them up a bit so that it looks like they’re falling and floating on the body. You might not know that it was a flower at all.”

Click through for more pics from the show…

Gorgeous mini-dress.