Fashion Magazine is arriving fashionably late to the events world with the launch of the Toronto Fashion Week Awards.
The awards, which cap off World MasterCard Fashion Week, will recognize creative talent and design excellence across the fashion industry, with categories including Best Emerging Designer, Best Hair, Best Models and Best Makeup.
It is the first event for the St. Joseph Communications brand, though sister brands such as Toronto Life have included them as part of their brand portfolio for some time.
Toronto Life‘s City Series – a series of live discussions with some of the city’s leading experts – has generated incremental revenue and become “a big brand extension” for the title, said St. Joseph’s marketing and communications manager, Jacqueline Kendall.
“It’s something that we’ve seen other brands delving into more and more,” said Kendall. “Toronto Life has done it really well [and] the events they’ve executed to date have really made sense for their brand.”
Kendall said Fashion had been seeking an appropriate event for the past two years, while the awards show has been in development since February. “It’s something we’ve considered for a while, but it had to make sense,” she said. “We work so closely with Fashion Week, it felt like this was a great fit.”
Fashion’s association with Fashion Week includes a three-year sponsorship of the “Mercedes-Benz Start-Up” program, which identifies and supports up-and-coming Canadian designers. Fashion is the only brand to have an official event on the Fashion Week calendar.
The event will be hosted by the magazine’s editor-in-chief Bernadette Morra and attended by industry influencers and tastemakers including retailers and select media. Up to 100 members of the public will also be able to purchase tickets for the event, which takes place in the city’s fashion district.
Sponsors for the inaugural event include Crystal Head Vodka, Peroni, Smartwater, Kim Crawford, Bottle Green and Swarovski. The latter will provide the trophies for the awards.
While the print industry has been hit hard by declining advertising revenues, Kendall said replacing lost revenue is not the primary motivation for creating the Toronto Fashion Week Awards.
“This has always been on the radar, so I wouldn’t say there’s a correlation,” she said. “It’s a big commitment for the brand.”
Coverage of the event will be posted on FashionMagazine.com, while a reveal of the People’s Choice Award winner for Best Collection will be featured in the February 2015 issue of Fashion Magazine.
The magazine’s Feburary 2015 iPad editon will also include video from the event, as well as interviews with Morra and leading designers attending the event.
