[transgendernews] [People/Style/Fashion] [Canada] Fashion Cares at Monster's Ball
Stephanie Stevens
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Excerpt: "I felt like a freak of nature at this gay event," he said.
"Did this woman not know that there were going to be transgendered
persons, drag queens, gays and lesbians at this event?"
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FROCKWATCH
Fashion Cares at Monster's Ball
Fashion Cares gala turned gory into glam as the 22nd annual event
returned to the Metro Convention Centre
Nov 06, 2008 04:30 AM
Derick Chetty
Star Stylist
[Photo: Left to right, Dominika Zagozda, journalist Jacqueline
Hennessy and drag personas Candace and Carlotta Carlisle put the glam
back into witchcraft at this year's Fashion Cares event. (Nov. 6,
2008) TARA WALTON/TORONTO STAR]
Is ugly the new pretty?
The notion seems to be gaining traction in pop culture, when a hit
television show is called Ugly Betty and a delightfully
average-looking bloke like Seth Rogen is the hot actor du jour. Even
the most non-descript citizen can become a star, thanks to reality
shows and YouTube.
And as Halloween celebrations reminded us, people take demonic delight
in celebrating the hideous, spending enormous energy, effort and money
to dress in all manner of grotesquery – if for only one night.
Which is why, the decision to move this year's Fashion sCares, the
22nd annual fashion bash, from spring to fall, and inject it with some
fresh blood with a Halloween theme (hence the small "s") seemed right
in keeping with this embrace of the less-than-perfect.
"Ugly is the new pretty, scaring is caring and we are bringing fashion
back to Fashion Cares," declared Michael King, the chair of this
year's event and the man with the task of steering this behemoth
benefit for the AIDS Committee of Toronto back on course.
After last's year event, a ghastly fiasco at the Distillery District
that lacked a fashion show and left patrons fuming for many reasons,
the event needed a splashy comeback to persuade the crowds to snap up
tickets to the show, which once use to be a sold-out event.
Helping it back on track was Phillip Ing, who returned to the artistic
director's chair to produce the fashion show. This year's show theme
borrowed from the classic thrillers of the master of the macabre
himself, Alfred Hitchcock, a director who made scary look chic.
If it weren't for those distracting moments of terror, the immaculate
costumes would be the stars of films like The Birds, Vertigo and Rear
Window, and brought to life by those icy blondes like Grace Kelly,
Tipi Hedren and Kim Novak.
Perhaps following this famed director's example that scary can be
stylish, several of the 2,300 guests at the gala last Saturday night
at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre played up the beautiful side of
ugly.
Take the two voluptuous drag queens dressed as witches. Rather than
opting for Macbeth morbidity, they were glamorous in shimmering
emerald green body paint and heavily bejewelled.
The costumes worn by fashion pop band Fritz Helder & The Phantoms may
have been inspired by a skull, though not just any old cranium but the
platinum and diamond-encrusted one by renowned British artist Damien
Hirst.
Proving that like a fine vintage, beauty can improve with age, the
marquee performance by seventy-something Dame Shirley Bassey showed
she still has the vocals, showmanship and wardrobe to light up a
cavernous room.
But while appearances might have been pretty, behaviour was ugly for
some. Take Katy Perry, the pretty chanteuse who when on the red
carpet, exclaimed rather loudly when she saw Enza "Supermodel"
Anderson, "Oh, you're a man!"
The popular transgendered columnist for Metro and a fixture on the
social scene in Toronto, said his heart sank when he heard her.
"I felt like a freak of nature at this gay event," he said. "Did this
woman not know that there were going to be transgendered persons, drag
queens, gays and lesbians at this event?"
Curiously, this is a singer who has ridden the wave to popularity with
a hit single called " I Kissed a Girl."
Fashion sCares '08 proved the event is back on track, but it will need
time to recapture its past glory. Some people felt the evening had a
low-key vibe compared to the decadent spectacles in the past.
The market bazaar was eliminated altogether but will be re-introduced
as a separate event at a later date. The buzz is that it will be
similar to the famous New York designer sale 7th On Sale.
(c) Copyright Toronto Star 1996-2008
http://www.thestar.com/living/article/531103
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