The web was all a-twitter yesterday with news of a special announcement from Mercedes-Benz and IMG, a fashion and media company. Fashionistas who had been holding their breath in anticipation of a possible Toronto-based Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week might be disappointed to hear that such is not the case, but fear not, the actual news is almost as good.
IMG has partnered up with Mercedes and LG Fashion Week to create the Mercedes-Benz StartUp, a program designed to nurture up-and-coming Canadian fashion designers who have been in the industry for less than five years.
The StartUp team intends to meet with some of Canada’s leading fashion experts to help determine the designers that would make the best candidates for the program. The final four designers will demonstrate their work on the catwalk at the LG Fashion Week showcase in October 2011, while the winner of the entire program will have access to mentoring from leaders in the industry for five months, and then make their solo design debut at LG Fashion Week in March 2012.
Here’s to hoping that the StartUp program will help bring Canadian fashion the next Jeremy Laing or Evan Biddell. But until then, we’ll always have Joe Fresh, right?