Brent Ray Fraser merges fashion and art with his show, Prêt-A-Porter, at the Eastwood Onley Gallery.

Credit: supplied

THE LOOK: Fall back into fashion with stylish events

Fall is a time of conflicting emotions for the average fashionphile. It’s time to put away all your fun, colourful summer clothes (Boo!), and dig through the part of the closet you’ve ignored for five months, rediscovering old, cozy friends (Yay!). Countless hours can be profitably spent assessing your fall wardrobe, identifying problems, and shopping for inexpensive trend pieces to bring your look up to date. Unfortunately, if you live in Vancouver, a seasonal outfit appraisal was just about the only fashion fun to be had.

While New York basked in the icy chill of Anna Wintour’s glowering documentary turn in The September Issue over Labour Day weekend, we in Terminal City were told to be patient. Apparently, the distributor thinks us such a pack of disinterested, fleece-wearing rubes that the film won’t hit here until sometime in late October (weeks after the film’s Toronto opening). As images from New York Fashion Week abound, trumpeting triumphant collections by newcomers (Project Runway winner Christian Siriano) and veterans (Diane von Furstenberg) alike, BC Fashion Week is still a week away. Vancouverites looking for a fashion fix, meanwhile, were left jonesing.

Fortunately, it looks like the sartorial drought is finally at an end. The coming weeks see an embarrassment of fashion-related events taking place across the city. So, throw on that new outfit and — for God’s sake — remember to cover your excitement with a suitable Wintour-like expression of world-weary ennui. Naked emotion, it seems, is never in fashion.

IDSWEST
While not fashion per se, IDSwest is, nonetheless, the premiere design show in Vancouver. Unlike other “design” trade shows that feature vendors of driveway bricks and hot tubs, IDSwest actually focuses on — wait for it — the design process. No need to elbow the suburban DIY crowd out of the way to see such exhibits as Designing Inside the Box, in which shipping containers are outfitted with the latest in cutting-edge design, or Off the Hook, wherein the rapidly disappearing phone booth is reinvented for the post-cellular age.
Sept. 17-20 at Vancouver Convention Centre (Canada Place). Tickets $10-$15 from IDSWest.com

PRET-A-PORTER
Brent Ray Fraser’s fashion and art odyssey began when, in 2008, the Emily Carr University student was chosen by Louis Vuitton to caricature shoes at parties across Canada. His Prêt-A-Porter art show incorporates mixed media (paint, newspaper clippings) and jackets, purses, and assorted garments from designers like Armani, Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Hugo Boss, Prada, and Yves Saint Laurent. As a further nod to the ins and outs of the schmatte trade, the more than 140 pieces will hang not only on the walls, but on those humble workhorses of the trade, rolling racks.
Sept. 18-Oct. 2 at Eastwood Onley Gallery (2075 Alberta), 604-739-0429, BrentRayFraser.com.

PUTTING ON THE GLITZ
No other medium has helped to shape our modern concept of fashion like the motion picture. From Lillian Gish to Clara Bow to Mae West to Katharine Hepburn to Ingrid Bergman, film stars were, as now, the preeminent fashion plates of their time. Local fashion historian Ivan Sayers hosts a look back at Hollywood glamour at the Original Costume Museum Society fundraiser, Puttin’ On the Glitz: Hollywood Style 1916-1946, with proceeds to benefit the ongoing search to secure a permanent home for the society’s collection.
Oct. 1 at Hellenic Centre (4500 Arbutus), 6 p.m. Tickets $60 from OCMS.ca and Lace Embrace Atelier (219 E. 16th).

BC FASHION WEEK
While very little info has been released as yet, BC Fashion Week will indeed be returning to the Chinese Cultural Centre (50 E. Pender), Sept. 28-Oct. 3. The grande dame of the local fashion scene, RozeMerie Cuevas of Jacqueline Connoir, intimated that she’s been busily preparing for her spring/summer 2010 collection’s upcoming debut. So far the schedule of designers and shows has yet to be released. Visit BCFashionWeek.com for details as they develop.