As someone who shares a star with Charlie Brown, working at a fashion magazine — a job characterized by the unpredictable, owing to its particular combination of deadlines, travel and egos — has been an education in Murphy’s Law. And, as the trusty adage would have it, the day the office is in a mad scurry to create order out of chaos, it is almost guaranteed that I will have an event — work-related or social — that requires looking like I took more than 10 minutes to get ready, when 20 is all I can spare.
When attending an event toasting Toronto’s Worthy 30, a collection of the city’s most eligible singles hand-picked by National Post columnist Shinan Govani (and presented by Grey Goose), one can only assume that the room will be decorated with well-manicured specimens of glamour. The pressure to look “done” at an event such as this might seem less unwieldy were one to have time to find proper cocktail attire (remembering the date of the event would help) and to not have their 1:30 plane from New York delayed till 3:30 the day of the party, leaving minimum amount of time to wash the smell of the wearisome journey off and apply the faux shine of beauty rest on. Travel: it’s the forerunner in the trifecta of imminent disruption listed above.
Help would be required if I planned on looking worthy of this cocktail event. Lucky for me, I knew just the two fairy godmothers capable of the pumpkin transformation at hand: up and coming Toronto fashion designer Sarah Stevenson, whose spring/summer 2011 collection impressed front row critics at last fall’s Toronto Fashion Week with its use of hand designed prints, and jewellery designer Eliza Korzurno, known for creating dramatic pieces that showcase her background in fine arts.
I arrange to meet the two at my place and, of course, due to delayed baggage and a shortage of cabs at the airport, I arrive late to both designers waiting outside my house only one hour before the event begins. After futilely trying to use the crunch for time as an excuse to not try on the dresses and jewelry Sarah and Eliza have brought, wanting to just eyeball a combo, jump in the shower and hope everything fits and matches, I end up trying on a few looks. The girls’ expert eye for fashion makes the fitting a speedy one. Within 20 minutes the outfit is chosen, and, all would be well, if only my hips were sample size. Out come the scissors and goodbye goes the bottom half of the dress’s lining. From one scullery maid to another, fairy godmothers are an indispensible thing.
Now about the look: The spectrum of cocktail attire can be a confusing thing; deciding where your event falls between casual and formal is the difference between a blazer, blouse, jean ensemble and a short elegant dress. On this occasion, a less structured, silk satin printed dress by Stevenson matched with one of Korzurno’s bold mono-coloured bib necklaces and beaded bracelets, created a look that fell nicely in the middle of the poles; ideal for a weekday event where a strategically loosened skinny tie is not an anomaly amongst the gentlemen partygoers.
Left: Amy Verner (L) and Shinan Govani (R), photo JJ Thompson Right: Ashleigh Dempster (L) and Aliya-Jasmine Sovani (R), photo Ryan Emberley
As for this partygoer, pumpkin-time that evening came with a sigh of relief. The event dazzled in all the ways it was meant to, but sleep sat on my eyelids like a petulant child. While parties and pretty frocks do delight, nothing quite compares to the couch and worn in flannel pajamas when work is wild and your brain is wired. I made a resolution this year to spend more time with the things I love: my pjs are number three on that list.
Toronto-based writer Jennifer Lee is the Editorial Director of FILLER magazine, an online fashion & culture journal. She is also the Co-Editor of Hardly magazine, an arts-centric online teen publication for Canadian girls. Her column, The Dressing Room, appears weekly.
