Campus Style: Studs, denim and florals

Student Name: Bailea Rutherford

Program: Fashion Arts

Expected Graduation Date: April 2015

Career Goal for The Future: Visual Merchandiser

Where The Clothes Are From:

Vest: DIY denim vest with studs and patches.

Lace Bandeau: Forever 21

Floral Maxi Skirt: West 49

Inspiration: When I asked if anything had inspired this outfit, she said that there wasn’t really anything specific. She just loves this vest and wants to build as many looks around it as possible.

By: Stephanie Blinn 

Winter Holiday Countdown: I is for INFUSE Magazine's Online Flipbook Edition

The Humber Fashion Arts Student Blog is proud to present, for your viewing pleasure, the online flipbook edition of INFUSE magazine. The annual print publication of the magazine "offers an opportunity to showcase student skills and experiences garnered throughout their time in the Fashion Arts, Cosmetic and Esthetician/Spa Management program in the Business School at Humber College. The contributions of issues of INFUSE represent students from various semesters and alumni. It will give you an insight into the activities they have participated in during the past academic year. To the retuning students we look forward to maintaining the active momentum we have established in the programs next year. To the graduating students from all programs, we will miss you and we wish you well as you embark on your exciting careers in the field of fashion and beauty. And finally to our Alumni we love receiving your updates and we continue to enjoy your success." — Program Coordinators Message, INFUSE Magazine 2013

Current and upcoming online editions of the magazine will be accessible through the INFUSE page of Humber's Fashion Arts Student Blog and through the blog's sidebar cover images.

Please click on the below cover image for the online flipbook edition of INFUSE. 

Special thanks to Rachelle Maynard and Black Cat Advertising for compiling and presenting the online flipbook edition of INFUSE. 

Humber #LaunchXSocial: Interview with Sophie McNabb, Social Media Coordinator for Town Shoes

By: Tamara Arnew

HUMBER LAUNCH "WE ARE ENTREPRENEURS" EVENT PANEL
PHOTO CREDIT: HUMBER LAUNCH

#LaunchxSocial was a top trending hash tag in the Toronto area on Tuesday afternoon, but it’s popularity on Twitter was hardly by coincidence. Humber Launch opened their “We Are Entrepreneurs” Social Media Event by encouraging participants, who filled the boardroom at the Lakeshore campus, to keep their phones in the conversation. As a panel of industry professionals discussed questions circulating around innovation, start-up ventures and social media, the audience participated in an online dialogue displayed on a large screen. The networking event went beyond business cards and formal question and answer; it was an open forum where connection between voices on social media met present-context. I had the pleasure of speaking one-on-one with Sophie McNabb, Social Media Coordinator for Town Shoes and The Shoe Company, who advocated the influence of social media in fashion retail business as a member of the discussion panel.

SOPHIE MCNABB AND TYRONE WARNER AT #LAUNCHXSOCIAL
PHOTO CREDIT: HUMBER LAUNCH

Sophie’s favorite footwear is her first pair of heels from Town Shoes— soft, real leather Calvin Klein pumps, classic and understated. Oh, and the pair that she was wearing —black cut-out ankle boots with gold hardware buckle accents. I might be a romanticist (or it’s just the writer in me) but there was some metaphor in her answer to my question about shoes. Social media moves between being a simple statement, a basic, and a realization of that seemingly effortless, innovative thought that no one wants to stop talking about. “Social media does follow trends,” Sophie says “It might be to your advantage to sometimes stray from those trends.”

Trend talk takes on a new meaning, what’s trending is the talking. “Fashion is a conversation piece. Social media is the conversation. It’s about the talking. The idea is really not to market your content at all.” In this eloquently put way, Sophie defines the pertinence of social media to the fashion industry. There’s the “essence of brands”, the ideas of different platforms, and trends that sway our attentions but essentially we are engaged in colloquial chitchat that definitely aligns with the philosophy behind fashion. Or with the love of shoes.

Visit the Town Shoes Twitter page and you’ll be introduced in “Shoezy”. Aside from being the self-proclaimed “world’s biggest shoe-aholic”, from her tweet voice we hear her being a customer service online representative for the company who spots her namesake obsession all over Toronto and gives us sneak peaks into her job at head office. On their Facebook page, graphic elements in posts include quotes like “If loving shoes is a crime, we plead guilty,” Dear Shoes, I'm writing to tell you that I love you,” and floor mat/footwear photos submitted by followers for the #MyTownPic campaign. Their Instagram and Pinterest accounts are just as fun and captivatingly shoe-centric of a look through. The visual aspect is key to their social media “There’s lots to show,” says Sophie “It wouldn’t be as compelling if we were writing descriptions of shoes! Pictures are perfect."

With a background in Graphic Design and Communications, Sophie’s unique role works amongst all departments of Town Shoes and The Shoe Company to facilitate brand manager directives and authenticate the company’s voice through social media — "It's a learning process that's self-taught." As one audience member tweeted words from Sophie during the panel, “If you're going to be authentic, don't market solely yourself (pun intended).” Sophie elaborates by saying “Ask questions and tell stories. Creativity in social media relies on being true to your brand profile in two ways. Brag about what makes you unique and bring your customer’s lifestyle into it.”

“Social Media is a fabulous way to get into the fashion industry. Take any opportunities that come, whether it being the job is in buying and you want to be in social media or the job is in social media and you want to be a buyer. Every opportunity leads to something else. Social media applies to more then just the marketing of social media.”

To contact HumberLaunch for more information on how they are a destination for entrepreneurial innovation please e-mail humberlaunch@humber.ca and follow their social media on Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram!

Humber Fashion Arts Students Present: Fashion Rap Sessions

Humber College's Fashion Art students showcase four unique fashion infused seminars. Learn about fashion and it's connection with health and beauty, technology, music and art. On Tuesday, November 12 in the E building concourse at Humber's North Campus seminars will take place, scheduled throughout the day.

10:00am - 11:00am "Feel Good Fashion" — Be unique, be yourself, be confident. Health, beauty, wellness and fashion seminar. Presented by Lisa Delorme and Kristy Wieber of Rent Frock Repeat, featuring Launch x Toronto and Rent Frock Repeat. 

12:00pm-1:00pm "Fashion Lab" — Expression is not limited by megapixels, neither is fashion.Technology and fashion seminar. Presented by Christina Mohomed and featuring high-end Canadian designer, Caitlin Power. 

2:00pm-3:00pm "The Beat of Fashion" — We march to the beat of fashion. Music and fashion seminar. Presented by Miss Globe 2006 Mada Papadakou featuring musical performance and panel discussion.

4:00pm-5:00pm "Concrete Jungle" — Where the creative streets and fashion collide. Art and fashion seminar. Presented by Bethany King of reality TV show The Project Guatemala and fashion student Alana Moor. Featuring spoken word artist "Deuce", graffiti artist "Jellin'", and Toronto street brand Nozo. 

Get to know Humber's Fashion a little bit more!

Humber Invitation To: WORN Fashion Journal Event at Type Books

WORN Fashion Journal is hosting a really exciting event coming up at Type Books, inviting the fashion students of Humber College.  It explores the interrelations between fashion, art and Aestheticism during the latter half of the nineteenth century.  WORN Fashion Journal is not your typical fashion magazine — they discuss the cultures, subcultures, histories, and personal stories of fashion. 

WORN Fashion Journal has the pleasure of hosting the book launch for Kimberly Wahl’s Dressed as in a Painting: Women and British Aestheticism in an Age of Reform, at Type Books (883 Queen Street West, Toronto) on Friday, October 11^th, 2013 between 7:00PM—9:00PM  .

Dressed as in a Painting, is the first book to focus exclusively on Aesthetic dress and its various expressions in the visual cultures of Victorian Britain and will be a necessary addition for fashion libraries, fashion historians, and fashion lovers everywhere.

Humber Attends The Hermès Festival Des Métiers

By: Tamara Arnew

HERMÈS SCARVES AT FESTIVAL DES MÉTIERS
PHOTO CREDIT: TAMARA ARNEW

There are a few instances in fashion that are movingly beautiful. Where emotions overcome everything that you know so far from this industry and the philosophies of beauty that we choose.  You are certain that your eyes have never seen something so bewilderingly magnificent and cannot quite describe how abstract things: a textile, a feel, an idea, a shape, can be so heart-stirring. Things seem to stop in this moment of colour, as they do when we are not often awe-inspired. This stopping point might very well look like an Hermès scarf. 

HERMÈS AT TORONTO'S DESIGN EXCHANGE
PHOTO CREDIT: TAMARA ARNEW 

This is what the Hermès Festival Des Métiers brings, for the first time in it's three years of travelling, to Toronto's Design Exchange as an exhibit and to the Humber Fashion Arts Students who attended Friday's opening events. That the stopping point, the moment of colour, the fluidity of the most treasured scarves is created by someone. Craftspeople, who showcase the artistry of their trade in the space— who, even after seeing such display of their mastery, keep Hermès tradition a mystery. 

ENGRAVER'S WORK STATION
PHOTO CREDIT: TAMARA ARNEW

The blueprint for Hermès was drawn 176 years ago. For a century their craftspeople were saddle-makers, working leather and constructing trees. The atelier began making scarves in 1937— first printing using a wood-block technique that stamped the scarves with four blocks. The process transformed to stretched silk on a frame and warped wood led to steel. Amongst the throws of the Second World War, there was an opportunity for further innovation. Parachute nylon collected by the design house to be stretched on canvas. Today, the printing process uses a sophisticated polyester mesh. Kamel Hamadou, head of the silk-printing atelier at Hermès and demonstrator of his "heart and craft", suggests however, that although "innovation is a great thing, tradition is better." Their by-hand process remains the same, regardless to material developments that would cause hurry. 

SILKSCREENING DEMO AND THE 46-DYE SCARF
PHOTO CREDIT: TAMARA ARNEW

PRINTING A 14-DYE SCARF, IN ONE HOUR
PHOTO CREDIT: TAMARA ARNEW

A scarf becomes illustrated in about an hour's time at the Festival Des Métiers with a design consisting of 14 dye colours. Out of the 75,000 hues that Hermès colourists have created and mixed to work with, 27 are typically selected to appear in a scarf's print. The "Cosmogonie Apache" scarf that Hamadou speaks to during the printing process, consists of 46 dyes with 15 screens building up depth in the face alone. It is the most layered of any of the Hermès' designs over the past 76 years.  The work that we see within this festival timeframe is comparable to watching Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel in a day without err. Each scarf takes two years to create and may become irrepairably damaged at every pass of dye, in each step of the processing treatment and in the details of finishing the edge. 

PROGRESSION OF THE SILK SCREEN
PHOTO CREDIT: TAMARA ARNEW

FINI! THE COMPLETED WORK
PHOTO CREDIT: TAMARA ARNEW

With designs being inspired and fabricated so far in advance by the atelier's engravers it is nearly impossible to conceptualize the creative process behind their work. Hamadou touches on the sentiment, noting that "When you are free, you can create." Twenty craftspeople dedicate a lifetime of study, apprenticeship and work to the house designing

ten to-be paintings on silk for each season, Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter, as well as colour and screen development for two ten piece re-addition collections. Current work is focused on pieces for 2015. Each set of screens constructed is used for the entirety of the printing of one piece of the elaborate patterns, as much a part of their artfulness as the dyes themselves. Hermès holds an honour that is easily forgotten in our abrupt course of direction. Their innovation is in kept traditions and the appreciation of what elaborate craft is inspired from the weaving of a butterfly cocoon   

HERMÈS SCARVES AT FESTIVAL DES MÉTIERS
PHOTO CREDIT: TAMARA ARNEW

HERMÈS SCARVES AT FESTIVAL DES MÉTIERS
PHOTO CREDIT: TAMARA ARNEW 

Special thanks to the Toronto Design Exchange and the craftspeople from Hermès for inviting Humber's Fashion Arts Students to share in this experience. 

Sources: Toronto Design Exchange, Another Mag, Hermes.com