Bash en Blanc Recap

Bash en Blanc came and went this weekend in a flash of white. The Government Convention Centre was turned into a white-hot dance party on Friday with some great DJ's, beatbox performances and a fashion show, all in support of the Snowsuit Fund.

My outfit was locally inspired. The top is Pink Stitch from Viens Avec Moi in Wellington West and the skirt was handmade for me by my AMAZING friend Hannah. She is honestly a whiz, it fit beautifully and looked like a million bucks.

I'm kind of new to parties like this, but it was really nice to see everyone come out in their best white outfits and dress up for a great cause.

After a few glasses of wine, white of course, I hit the dance floor with Emily from Tinfoil Tiaras and her man Maher. Emily was the winner of my contest last week and the pair of them looked amazing in their all-white ensembles.

After leaving the shin-dig I tempted fate with a McChicken with BBQ sauce and I'm proud to say that my pristine white outfit is still white...which means for the first time in my life I did not spill something on myself while wearing white. SUCCESS.

Bash en Blanc CONTEST

Bash en Blanc is coming up and SOON. June 21st marks the night of Ottawa's first all-white (or all white with black accents if that's what you're into) party.

It's less than a month away and I'm already scoping out my favourite shopping destinations to find something pristine to spill wine on at a party.

Not only will it be a wicked event with VIP treatment, cocktails, a DJ and a fashion show, but it's all for a good cause: this year's white-hot party is being held to benefit the Snowsuit Fund of Ottawa.

Last year the Snowsuit Fund provided 15,000 snowsuits to children under the age of 15. In Canada, where we have winter weather for more than half the year, staying warm is a definite need.

I'm giving away a pair of tickets to the party right here.

To enter just do the following:

1. "Like" The Snowsuit Fund on Facebook
2. In the comments below, indicate that you'd like to enter the contest and tell me what kind of all-white outfit you'd wear, leave your email too, or a way to contact you!

I'll announce the winner on Friday, June 14th.

The event is still a few weeks away, but I'll leave you with some all white everything inspiration. I know I'll need it while I'm figuring out what to wear!

Good luck!

Oh and if you want to just straight up purchase tickets, you can do so here. Hopefully see you there!

Chop Chop See You Later!

In the most recent issue of FLARE, assistant fashion news editor, Emily Ramshaw chronicles the week before lopping off 15 inches of her precious, precious hair.

I wasn't working at FLARE when Emily had long hair, so seeing her with the short hair wasn't a big deal, but reading the her article and seeing how stylish and chic she looks every day has totally inspired me to do my own long goodbye.

My Inspiration:

It's ok, I'm a limo driver.

I saw this picture of Olivia Wilde and I was sold. I had been turning it over in my mind for weeks to chop off my mane, but Olivia sealed the deal for me. I showed the pic to my boyfriend and his response was, "That looks great! But then again, it's Olivia Wilde, she could have a Lloyd Christmas haircut and still be hot." I'll take that as a vote of confidence!

The Stylist:

I only trust the best, and I'm lucky because I happen to be related to her. My cousin Stacy works at Synergy Spa in Orleans, which you should totes check out. It's a really great spa, totally worth the trip to Orleans!

Before:

I used to have this free for all spirit about my hair. "It's just hair!" I would say, "It'll grow back!" But after growing it for a few years and having it to shield me when I was at my most self conscious, the thought of chopping it all off is not only scary, it's actually anxiety-inducing

After:

So it's been about a week since I had it all cut off, and what a week it's been. Literally a roller-coaster, I went from loving it, to hating it, and thinking I looked like an ugly boy. Don't get me wrong, the cut is fantastic, it was my face that seemed to be the problem. It was mostly when I was around pretty girls with long hair that I felt left out. I can't be in the pony tail club anymore. Unless they're accepting girls with David Beckham-esque teeny half buns. But once I've got my outfit on, and my makeup did, I decided that I really like it. Like REALLY like it. In fact as I'm writing this out, I'm even thinking about going shorter...

Success!

Fashion Crimes: The BIG Debate

Last night I went to a really informative and inspirational discussion. No, I'm not talking about Oprah. While no one gave up their Jimmy Choo's at the event I attended, I still enjoyed the panel discussion Fashion Crimes: The BIG Debate held at the ROM in Toronto. I headed over with a PR friend of mine who heard about the panel while trying to research cool things in Toronto for us to do together.

Five panelists included Canadian designer Jeremy Laing, Ryerson University School of Fashion chair Robert Ott, branding and fashion lawyer Ashlee Froese, VP and buying director for The Room at The Bay Nicholas Mellamphy and the always electric Jeanne Beker who acted as moderator.

The discussion of the evening ranged from talking about the pros and cons of fast fashion, marketing and branding in a social media obsessed world and the blogger phenomenon, the panel gave great insight and a few laughs about what it means to be involved in the fashion industry in Canada today.

When it came to talking about fast fashion Canadian designer Jeremy Laing acknowledged that while he is no proponent of the trend, it's not something that bothers him. "It's the reality of the business," he said. "If anything [when I see the high street ripping me off] it inspires me to do something different in my next collection."

The panel itself seemed a little bit split on verdict of whether supporting fast fashion is sustainable, and whether high street fashions cheapen designer labels,  but they all seemed to agree that it's something that is not going anywhere, anytime soon. 

The other part of the discussion that piqued my interest was when the panel turned their spotlight on the explosion of fashion bloggers over the last five years. "I have a journalist friend who laments at the six billion journalists in the world today," said Ryerson chair Robert Ott. "I always tell him, 'just think about the 12 billion fashion critics. Everyone is a critic twice over, of their own style, plus a critic of what everyone else should be wearing."

Laing for one says that the blogosphere explosion is having a more adverse effect on him, and he believes it's a trend that will soon pass. He no longer looks at websites or blogs for fashion inspiration. "I have friends who are very successful bloggers, and I'm definitely proud of them," he said. "But I don't look at their blogs every day. If anything, this attention on bloggers makes me focus more on my own work."

"I think that one day people will get tired of dressing for the internet, wearing bright coloured patterns on patterns, and put on a black jacket again," he said.

When Beker posed the question to the panel, "Where do you get your fashion from?" The speakers fell silent. Not one of them could give a solid answer on where they gathered fashion inspiration. It was Ott who offered some wisdom on the subject.

"We are consumers looking for taste-makers, but we don't know who they are today," he said. "Do you trust the magazine editor, or the 'wild west' that has become the internet?"

A thought-provoking, yet short panel. At an hour and 20 minutes, I would have liked the discussion to be a bit longer and to come to a few more definite conclusions, but leaving the debate open-ended left lot's of room for a post-discussion wine and cheese fest in Yorkville. No complaints here!

Freedom to read and be inspired

Freedom to Read Week is happening right now, it's a celebration of exercising your intellectual rights, a week planned to promote the idea that banning books and magazines in a free country like Canada is wrong.

I love the fact that in my house I can have my Harry Potter next to my Catcher in the Rye. These books inspired and comforted me in my formative years. Recently, I’ve been finding inspiration in fashion biographies, and coffee table books.

Photographer and stylist, Justyna Baraniecki has just finished reading Stylists by Katie Baron.

“If someone wants to get into styling, it’s a really great book to get,” she says. “It takes 100 to 150 of the top stylists working today and interviews them and takes a look into their aesthetic and what inspires them, I look at that one often.”

Local fashion designer Amy Scarlett Donovan is currently reading Grace, the biography of Vogue’s “unsung hero”, Grace Coddington.

“It's wonderful,” Donovan says. “I'm falling more and more in love with her every page. She's very honest and candid and shares so many amazing little secrets about her encounters with people within the industry.”

“It's really special and I encourage anyone who loves fashion, Vogue, or the September Issue to absolutely read it.”

Donovan says that as a visual person, she gains inspiration from fashion books such as the official Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood books.

The premise of Freedom to Read Week seems to go hand in hand with Freedom to Find Inspiration. And isn’t that what books are all about?

Love Joe Fresh? Enter this!

I'm sure you all know that Joe Fresh is opening up at the St. Laurent Centre in a couple weeks, last I heard it was opening on Feb. 27, and to celebrate, St. Laurent is hosting a pretty cool contest.

As a brand, it's pretty impressive that Joe Fresh has gone from being sold at select Loblaws to opening stand-alone stores in such a short period of time. They are even showing at Toronto Fashion Week again this season! 

You guys probably already know how much I love supporting local and supporting Canadian, and Joe Fresh totally fits the bill. But did you know that Joe Mimran, the designer who created Joe Fresh also launched Club Monaco once upon a time? Cool Huh? 

It also doesn't hurt that Joe Fresh is still great quality for the price. Some of my favourite items in my closet came from between the soft-drink isle and pharmacy, and I'm super excited for them to stand-alone at St. Laurent!

Enter the contest at St. Laurent's Facebook Page.

Getting Dressed for Ottawa Fashion Week

OFW is right around the corner, actually it literally starts today. Everyone who goes sees it as the perfect opportunity to go nuts and showcase their best outfits. As someone who would fake sick to get out of school, when really I just hadn't picked my outfit the night before, I see OFW as my time to shine. The outfit planning is the most fun of the whole thing.

A Conversation with Justyna Baraniecki

For Justyna Baraniecki, fashion is not a priority. "It's not a very romantic answer," she says. "But at the end of the day, I just try and create really good images."

www.chameleonic.co, photo by: Joel Bedford 

The stylist, photographer and blogger has been maintaining a successful creative career in a city that sometimes seems intimidated by creativity.

A self-professed 'visual communicator', Baraniecki and her partner Joel Bedford run a successful photography company ranging from weddings to fashion editorials to food and landscapes.

In the future, Baraniecki says they would like to do more architecture photography. "If you're working as a photographer in Ottawa, it's really hard to be a specialist and only do one thing," she says. "You have to be able to do more than one type of photography."

She is also adamant about having a strong business sense in the creative industry. "Most people think that if you have a creative job, you're doing your hobby," she says. "They don't realize that if you work in the creative industry, only about 10 per cent of your work is actually being creative, the other 90 per cent is business."

It's that business sense that has allowed Baraniecki to be successful in the past. Three years ago when starting her fashion blog, she made the conscious decision to never work for free. She believes the creative industry is full of people trying to take advantage of artists.

"If you're doing creative anything, the expectation is to do it for free," she says. "If you work for free, you're never going to get credit, and no one is going to respect the work you do."

"Mine and Joel's motto is that quality costs. If you want your product to look good, or your article to sound good, it's going to cost. I would recommend never doing anything for free."

The work that Baraniecki and Bedford produce definitely falls under the "good images" tag that Baraniecki described. She says they gather inspiration from movies, and right now are in a phase where they want all of their photos to have a cinematic feel. Although it is sometimes hard to reproduce the image in her head in a city with limited resources.

Baraniecki wearing a dress by local designer, Amy Scarlett Donovan, styling by: Justyna Baraniecki, photo by: Joel Bedford www.chameleonic.co

"When styling a fashion shoot one of the first things I'll usually do is go on Pinterest," she says. "I'm not a very good communicator, so I usually end up looking for elements in other people's work."

"It's like, imagine the lighting in this shot, but with hair like this girl, and then she's wearing something more like this," Baraniecki says. "We kind of just go from there."

Baraniecki has also cultivated a list of designer contacts that she uses in her work for Ottawa Citizen Style . On developing the contacts, Baraniecki's method is just as effortless as everything else about her; she just emails them up and asks for what she wants.

"When it comes to online communication, I justimagine the internet as a giant room and if I want something from someone Iwould just go up to them and introduce myself."


Baraniecki says she always seems to do whatever feels right for her regarding style and fashion.  Even though fashion blogging in itself has lost its lustre, she still enjoys reading some style blogs.

"I read Style by Kling religiously," she says. "There's nothing in this world I love more than sleep, so each morning I give myself 10 minutes to brush my teeth, do my hair and get out the door, and 30 seconds of that 10 minutes goes to looking at her blog."

According to Baraniecki, fashion blogging is something that started off fresh and new, but has progressed into something stale and uninteresting. At first, style blogging was an amazing alternative to looking at photos of celebrities and models, but Baraniecki feels that the bloggers of today are not people we should look up to sartorially.

"You realize that a lot of these bloggers are 16 or 17 years old and have limitless budgets," she says. "You have to ask yourself, why am I looking up to these girls?"

Baraniecki chooses to find inspiration elsewhere. "Why on Earth would I care what some fashion blogger -- I don't care if she has a million followers -- is wearing? Quite frankly, I'm more interested in what Kate Moss is wearing."

When it comes to leaving the norm behind and chasing the creative career you want, Baraniecki offers some advice:

"Recognize that when you are doing what you want,it’s still the same, it's still a job," she says. "Get really good with your taxes, know how to charge peopleproperly, networking, sourcing clients, marketing, take a look at how to run asuccessful small business an apply to whatever avenue you want to take, it’s alot of work," she says.  "But always schedule fun time."

"[Trying to stay on top of fashion] will drive you crazy, I always just try and do what feels right in the moment." Photo from www.chameleonic.co