Elle Canada - The Elle Word

by Ava Baccari

Valentina and Angela Phung, owners of The Store On Queen.

The best way to put up with a missing fashion niche in the city – a fierce, OTT sartorial eclecticism – is to fill it yourself. And that’s just what designer Angela Phung and buyer Valentina (a one-name wonder like Cher or Madonna) are doing with the launch their joint fashion venture, The Store On Queen, which officially opens its doors this Friday, May 18.

The playful duo were introduced by a cousin of Valentina’s but moved in similar fashion circles, so their first meeting was inevitable. After discovering their shared interest in opening a Queen West shop over lunch at The County General on Queen Street in February, they entered into a committed fashion merchant “marriage” – “Yes, we even have rings!” says Valentina – after they spotted a for sale sign in a storefront and immediately decided to make it their new home.

The girls were still painting and prepping the boutique the day before their exclusive pre-launch party Thursday night. I caught up with Valentina, who took me through her and Angela’s fashion history and what they hope to bring to Toronto’s trendy Queen West strip.

How did you get your start in fashion?

Angela studied fashion design at Fanshawe College in London, Ont., for three years. At 18-years-old, she was ranked among Canada’s best up-and-comers and was chosen as one of eight Canadian young designers to compete in the International Young Fashion Designers Competition in Paris. In 2006, Angela was chosen to showcase at Toronto Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2007. After graduating, she decided to postpone her career to join the family restaurant business. She decided to take a year off and moved to Toronto in October 2011.

I worked for a leading Canadian retailer, both as in-store management and interned as a buyer at their head office. I left after nine years and opened a unisex boutique in Canada, which I sold to travel after three years. I also have an online shop, shopsundayvalentine.com, which I started when I moved here, and will switch over to TSOQ. Also, I have been obsessed with fashion and being different since I was probably five years old.

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by Ava Baccari

Mother-daughter fabulousness of Carine Roitfeld and Julia Restoin-Roitfeld sitting front row at Alexander Wang’s Spring/Summer 2012 runway show. Image courtesy of ImaxTree.com.

Whether it’s applying clear nail polish to mend a pantyhose run or how to end a relationship gracefully, a mother’s advice is as sharp and on-point as she is. You heard from Canadian designers about how their mothers influenced them; now some of the most memorable words of wisdom – and trade secrets – from the strong women who inspired the ELLE Canada team.

“My mother didn’t have the remotest interest in fashion or beauty. For her, a woman was both beautiful and fashionable if she had something witty to say; could engage in a thoughtful debate or tell a great tale. Solid – and inspired – advice on both counts, I’d say.”

- Noreen Flanagan, Editor-in-chief.

“Sleep without a pillow under your head to reduce double-chin and always keep a somewhat tight thread tied around your waist to keep it from getting bigger (it will remind you when you are getting beyond limits!). P.S. I love my mom!”

- Beatriz Juarez, Art director

“My mum didn’t give me a lot of beauty advice, but she always told me to push back my cuticles with a towel after I get out of the shower. It’s now part of my routine!”

- Ciara Rickard, Production editor

“Always wash your face before you go to bed.”

- Christina Reynolds, Managing editor

“My mom has great skin, so when it comes to beauty I took her advice. She always told me to wash off my makeup before bed and moisturize, moisturize, moisturize! I’m pretty lucky I inherited some of her best qualities, flawless complexion included! On the fashion front, she always said that I never listened!”

- Noah Lehava, Web editor

“The best beauty advice my mom ever gave me was to embrace my natural curls. I spent too many years brushing them out, pulling back my hair and giving myself terrible blowouts as she rolled her eyes. I didn’t want to have my mom’s mess of black curls. It seemed so uncool. Now that I let my hair do as it pleases, I feel much more myself and am actually glad to look like my mother’s daughter.”

- Kathryn Hudson, Features editor

“My mom taught us to shop for quality over quantity, and to take care of the pieces we bought so they would last. She gets a ton of wear out of her clothes season after season and she always looks amazing!”

- Corissa Bagan, Production designer

“When I moved to Halifax to attend university, my mom gave me three pieces of important life advice. I don’t remember the first two, but the third was ‘Always wear comfortable shoes.’ I don’t follow that as often as I should, but every time I’m limping about in heels, I remember that and it makes me want to give her a hug.”

-Laura deCarufel, Executive editor

“My mom always took great care of her nails. She never wore polish and always had them in the same shape, but she took the time to groom them and make sure they looked feminine, healthy and in flawless condition. I don’t remember her telling me to take care of my nails, but just seeing her spend time on them has been passed down to me and my obsession with perfect nails.”

- Jennifer Weatherhead, Senior web editor

by Ava Baccari

If there’s anyone who deserves credit for seeing us go from who we want to be to whom we actually become – and giving us a few inspiring words along that way – it’s mom. This Mother’s Day, some of our favourite Canadian designers pay tribute to the women who influenced their distinct styles and continue to stand by them as they shine in the spotlight. For that, we thank them too.

Chloé Comme Parris

Fave memory: ”We both have so many memories of sewing and making clothes and art with our mother when we were little. We would make DIY gift-wrapping paper and she would lay down a huge piece paper and we would run around and paint it and then use it to wrap everything come birthday and holidays. Most recently, our favorite mom moments are of drinking tea in her bed [where] we will sit and chat/gossip/get advice on work, life, boys – everything. We feel as though our relationship is getting stronger as we are getting older and have found that as you age you begin to realize that your parents are more like you than not.”
Words of wisdom: ”She always told us to stay true to ourselves and not to be afraid of being vulnerable because that is what makes you creative. We love her so much for that – it’s pretty priceless advice.”
Celebration this year: “We’re all spending Mother’s Day together at our childhood home. We’re both heading to her place to cook her a surprise dinner. We’re making her favorite – which we’ve never cooked before! – so hopefully all goes smoothly. We think she’ll love it and she definitely deserves it.” Read the rest of this entry

by Ava Baccari

About Face director Timothy Greenfield-Sanders between models Beverly Johnson (left) and Cheryl Tiegs (right)

Her Sports Illustrated covers and editorial spreads flash across the screen and it’s as if supermodel Paulina Porizkova is finally seeing what the rest of the world has been looking at for the decades that she’s been a star in the fashion and beauty biz.  “I should have been naked all the time!” Porizkova, now 47, tells the camera, blue eyes wide and rapturous.

Porizkova’s epiphany comes courtesy of About Face: The Supermodels, Then and Now, a documentary screening this week as part of Toronto’s Hot Docs festival. The doc’s director is Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, the famed American photographer, who displays his adeptness at teasing out aha! moments about aging gracefully from some of the world’s most iconic faces.

And it turns out they have a lot to say. The doc’s subjects—from Carmen Dell’Orefice and China Machado to Beverly Johnson and Christy Turlington— are fiercely critical and hyper-aware of the modelling world and their fleeting place in it.

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by Ava Baccari

An Audrey Hepburn-inspired look for Starkers! Corsetry runway show at |FAT| Arts and Fashion Week.

As if stepping right out of a scene from Corpse Bride, the corseted models with feminine, cupcake flares on Starkers! Corsetry runway exuded darkly classic Tim Burton grandeur. “It’s Audrey Hepburn meets The Munsters!” designer Dianna DiNoble tells me backstage after the parade of her underwordly bridal gowns at FAT Arts & Fashion Week.

The theme for day three of the city’s edgiest alternative fashion event is fittingly, Body Scapes. Early on in the evening Vanja Vasic, FAT executive director, warned us there would be corsets and DiNoble’s collection of silk, chiffon and satin gowns boldly lived up to Vasic’s claim.

“My inspiration this year was actually offbeat brides,” says DiNoble, the corsetiere behind the whimsical line of one-of-a-kind couture bridal gowns, made out of her Toronto-based studio since 1992. Her standout piece? The closing black chiffon gown with a giant headpiece, reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn’s My Fair Lady doppelgänger. “My fingers are still bleeding from the beadwork!” she adds, laughing.

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by Ava Baccari

Krystin Pellerin and Gregory Prest in You Can’t Take It With You, courtesy of Soulpepper Theatre Company.

“What is this strange feeling that I’m feeling?” says Canadian actor Gregory Prest, who’s trying to describe the foreign emotion that’s washed over him lately during rehearsals for Soulpepper Theatre Company’s production of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s You Can’t Take It With You. Then it hits him. “Oh, love!” he blurts out, laughing.

It’s not that Prest— a National Theatre School grad who hails from Pictou, Nova Scotia—is incapable of displaying emotion. In fact, he’s as affable and charming in person as he is tortured and conflicted on stage—well at least going by the menacing and dark roles he’s taken up in recent Soulpepper productions. “I never get to play this sort of thing, somebody other than a tortured or dying young artist,” he tells me one morning in the lobby of the Young Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto’s Distillery District. “It’s wonderful.” Read the rest of this entry

by Ava Baccari

Ellen von Unwerth, the rock star of fashion photography, is glancing around the Izzy Gallery in Yorkville, where life-sized photographs of her iconic shots cover the walls. She’s struggling to select her favourite snap. “They all have something I love in them,” she muses after a moment of hesitation. Then she points to a photograph of Italian actress Monica Bellucci, stripped down to a matching leopard-printed bra and panties. “This shot is from the first photo shoot I ever did with [Monica],” von Unwerth recalls with the sentimental attachment of a proud mother. “And she was actually just changing in the motor home. It was really its own moment. I’ve shot her so many times since but those pictures are still my favourite.”

That’s because von Unwerth— named one of TIME’s top 100 all-time fashion icons—prefers to capture “stolen moments” rather than posed portraits. For the first time since von Unwerth shot to fame in the ‘80s, the self-taught German photog is displaying a retrospective of her work in Toronto. A selection of the frisky, bombshell icons von Unwerth has snapped over the years, Caught! is a decadent visual walkthrough of old-school female glamour.

A von Unwerth signature

The thing about a von Unwerth photo is that it’s instantly recognizable. Take the iconic Claudia Schiffer Guess campaign from 1989, a prime example of von Unwerth’s trademark moody, eroticized aesthetic—a gorgeous woman teasing the camera with a mix of innocence and cheeky come-hither sensuality. “I always go for glamorous,” says von Unwerth, a vision herself in a gold sequined blazer and side-swept, piecey blond bun. “I don’t like the girl-next-door look.”

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by Ava Baccari

Jason Wu did it for Target; same for Marni with H&M. Now eleven established and upcoming designers will roll out capsule collections created exclusively for Made in Kind, Anthropologie’s new online platform for seeking out one-of-a-kind talent.

The hybrid shopping/gallery one-stop site launches today (April 5) and includes upcoming as well as some well-known New York Fashion Week faves (yes, there’s a Gregory Parkinson capsule line in there).

Here’s an intimate look at the 11 curated new and vintagey collections culled by around-the-globe designers available only at this online gallery of the best kind of art: the kind you live in.

Drawings by Florence Balducci
An artisan of all trades creative—illustration, fabric design and acting—Parisian designer Florence Balducci is naturally an Anthropologie vet. Her hand-sketched printed scarves and silhouette-engraved chinaware have been available at the fashion-forward retailer for years. Now Balducci releases a collection of vintage-inspired military jackets (approx. $300)—the kind her dad wore—only embellished with ornate floral detailing and whimsical animal sketches.

Gregory by Gregory Parkinson
A British expat, Parkinson understands the colourful prints and air-light fabrics of his adopted L.A. homeland—in fact, he designed most of them. For his capsule collection created exclusively for Anthropologie (from approx. $214 to $464), he departed from the all-white, minimalist dresses that defined his Spring/Summer 2012 for a kaleidoscopic smattering of tie-dyed fabrics.

Hi There! From Karen Walker
Rarely does a designer perfectly embody both of her polar style opposites: feminine and downtown edge, demure and eye-catchingly bold. Yet such is the trademark of New Zealand-based designer Karen Walker, whose collection, only available at Anthropologie, is a New York Fashion Week staple. Hi There! From Karen Walker (from approx. $140 to $160) is made up of six classic, paisley-patterned frocks with a distinct, vintage wallpapery twist. Read the rest of this entry

by Ava Baccari

An Air Canada flight attendant uniform from the mid to late 1960s.

Admit it—at one point or another, you dreamed of becoming a flight attendant. Imagine a day’s work consisting of jet-setting to Fiji, your commute thousands of feet above sea level, and your ride… Then, of course, there’s the fashion.

The outfits that adorn the glamorous cabin crew have long been of interest to passengers. Last fall, armchair travellers indulged their airborne fascination admiring the pillbox hats, gloves and slim-fitting blue suits on the ABC series Pan Am. Last week, Air Canada celebrated its 75th anniversary with a retrospective fashion show in Toronto displaying every flight attendant uniform since the company’s inception in 1937. (Back then, of course, the term “stewardess” was in full force. Times certainly have changed.)

The Air Canada show displayed a selection of looks spanning seven decades, starting with the first in-flight uniform that was purchased off the rack at The Bay. At a time when only nurses could work as cabin crew, Air Canada employed two flight attendants who developed the look: a two-buttoned beige gabardine suit. A brick red handkerchief was tucked into the breast pocket, and matched the red blouse, along with brown shoes and tie. A brown wedge cap topped off the look.

Click through to check out the look!

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by Ava Baccari

—Designer Wesley Badanjak, laughing, backstage after his Basch/LOVAS double-bill runway show Tuesday night at 99 Sudbury.