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June 2001
Download the word version, perfect for printing and handing out on street corners!
Fleshtopia: Behind the Magic of Low-Rent Fashion Shows
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X-The Geoff With The X-Ray Eyes
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If there could be one name in the Canadian fashion industry to sum up flair, elegance, and sassiness, that name would have to be Richard Robinson. This effete Franco-Ontarian has single handedly piloted the course of style around the Great White North for far more than one year. To further his noble ends he founded a school, appropriately in the nation's capital, and equally appropriately called the Richard Robinson Fashion Design Academy. Every year Robinson hosts a gala affair to showcase his latest designs, as well as those of his graduating students. Models are gathered for this Grand Guignol of Haute Couture from as far away as Deacon, Ontario. No expense is spared. Seen from the showroom floor, the event looks like any other runway hullabaloo. The catwalk extends through the crowd like a great phallus ready to ejaculate pręt-a-porter fashions from the backstage into the collective mental uterus of the audience. Sticking with the male genital metaphor, let us make the event turn its head and cough so that we may make a Tim Blanksian inspection behind the curtain, to where the real action is. The first thing any red-blooded male or lesbian would notice are the large number of very pretty, young women in various stages of undress. In fact, if you take only one thing away from this expose, let it be that. Dozens of girls, almost all of them pretty, almost all of them naked. There's a model for every taste; from the Jon Benet Ramseyesque 12-year old attitude machine, to the near 30, demur former stripper. Like a buffet, there's something for everyone, and it's all you can eat. The hubbub grows to a feverish boil as show time nears. Models are practicing their sashays in their stilettos while techies tweak lights and stylists touch up hair. The designers, mouths full of pins, yell for scissors and needles. And then, the fantasy begins…The first collection to strut down the catwalk was Robinson's. Not since Duran Duran's Rio has such an extravagant and delightful use of primary colours and hot pinks been seen. The mid-80's are back again, with tube dress minis, cat's eye sunglasses and caustically severe ponytails. Taking what could well have been a dull retrospective of Miami Vice Vogue into the new millennium are the wheels of cloth rotating about the shoulders and hips, like satellite habitat rings. Watch for these styles to be popular among the Britney Spears crowd, who surely must be tired of those adorably dated athletic pants, mini tops and functional shoes. The Richard Robinson collection 2001 will be available at an Eatons or J.C. Penny near you soon. It was then the students' time to shine, with the first year designers up showing their mid-course outfits. These young creators have embraced that staple of modern fashion: faux fur. Collars, ankle trim, belts, sashes, hats. It's all fur and it's all fake. It was a veritable imaginary safari. Perhaps most innovative was the snow lynx camisole with matching garter belt. It was a Bedrock blast of caveman chic in this all too sleek world of hybrid power cell engines and DVD players. Next began the parade of graduating students' designs. There were no overriding themes here, as each designer embraced their inner Coco Chanel to truly show their creativity in an effort to become the next Gauthier, or P. Diddy. A couple of examples to set the tone: a divinely inspired collection of all white, semi-functional eveningwear. The little wings on the shoulders just scream chic, letting you know that you have been touched by an angel in a way Roma Downey can only shudder at in ecstatic imagination. More audacious was the all black catsuit, accentuated by the cloth adorned hula-hoop and wide brimmed wicker hat. Truly an outfit worthy of Milan, or perhaps the Betty Ford Clinic. After the students were done, the final highlight of the show began. It was a no-holds barred tribute to the bustier. All stops were pulled out for this essential undergarment that fought for its freedom like a feisty suffragette. And what a treat emancipation has turned out to be. There were leather bustiers, peacock feather bustiers, bustiers of wood, bustiers of satin. Never were more breasts and chests pulled into such fine and uniform condition. If there were a Mensa for mammaries, it would have been the world headquarters. The evening wrapped up with an awards ceremony, but to be frank, who was paying attention by then? Our minds and eyes had been flooded with beauty and screamingly hot designs. Richard Robinson had delivered once again, and even though the evening's dream was over, in our hearts, we knew it had only just begun.
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