The twitter-verse was set ablaze this week by the surprising news that Toronto Fashion Week has been sold. This is an interesting development for North America’s second largest fashion week (following New York) and goes beyond a mere change in sponsorship. Mastercard will continue as the title sponsor for the upcoming shows scheduled in October 2012.
Until recently, Toronto’s Fashion Week has been run by the Fashion Design Council of Canada, with Robin Kay at the helm. Under the FDCC’s guidance, Toronto’s Fashion Week has fared well with attendance rising to 40,000 over a 5 day period. Now with IMG in the driver’s seat, it’s a safe bet that Toronto Fashion Week’s bi-annual events’ exposure will increase significantly.
Simply put, as a global conglomerate IMG is an international leader in the sports, fashion and media industries. Divided into a number of subdivisions, IMG specializes in licensing, generating media content and programming, running events, talent representation and brand identities. Of course, IMG’s Fashion division is of particular to interest to CanadaFashionLaw. Under this umbrella, IMG owns and operates a number of well-reputed fashion events around the world (think New York, Milan, Berlin, Tokyo, London, Miami, Russia, etc.), along with representing a number of models, photographers, stylists and fashion designers. This degree of specialization, coupled with IMG’s hyper-connectedness to the media is a good sign that Toronto’s Fashion Week is moving in the right direction to be a serious platform for designers on the international scene.
Never one to miss a Toronto fashion event, CanadaFashionLaw is looking forward to getting her industry pass for the new and improved Toronto Fashion Week. Hope to see you there on October 22 to October 26, 2012!