It’s hard to imagine Toronto, let alone Canada without Fashion Week. So we’d like to wish Toronto Fashion Week a happy 10th anniversary, because without you we wouldn’t have an excuse to wear our dangerously high heels for 10+ hours! After the Joe Fresh Fall 2009 runway show, the audience was asked to remain seated for a special 10th Anniversary presentation. Perhaps to avoid the PR disaster of last season (Robin Kay’s drunken schpeel before the Mango presentation), the FDCC asked Jeanne Beker, Canada’s reigning queen of fashion reporting, to host the 10th Anniversary celebrations. After a brief introduction, the audience was directed to watch a short montage video of Toronto Fashion Week footage from the past 10 years. It was only then that we realized that many of the labels and designers mentioned in the video are no longer with us (at Fashion Week or even as labels) and it is only those that break into larger international fashion weeks that seem to have a fleeting chance of surviving.

But back to the love, which was encouraged by the Marvin Gaye tribute singer who serenaded the audience with classic Marvin Gaye and Beatles standards accompanied by a gowned gospel choir, like something out of Sister Act. Like Whoopi’s sisters, they politely urged the audience to join in by clapping and singing along in a very kumbaya kind of moment. But after the video, we had to ask ourselves, is love all we really need to make Toronto a fashion week to reckon with on the world stage?