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   The C’est Chic designer group show at Hazelton Lanes (55 Avenue Road), located in the heart of Toronto’s renowned shopping and entertainment district, featured designs from an eclectic and talented group of designers. This list includes Aquascrutum of London, TNT Woman, TNT Blu, Petra Karthaus, Love and Money, Tian Art, and shoe accessories from Browns Shoes, Vivaci Shoes, KSP Jewelry and Sandro and Felice. From sexy swimwear and cute tops to beautifully tailored pants (and culottes and jeans) and killer coats, everyone put forth their best efforts and scored a hit. Fashion is all about change and the occasional changing of the guard. Ergo, presentations such as these give young designers a chance to show their stuff and demonstrate their abilities in the best possible setting. There wasn’t much to dislike here and Toronto Fashion Week was the better for that.
   The Layer by Jennifer Dares collection was filled with pieces infused with clean line detailing that is strong yet sexy, and completely influenced by the shape of a woman’s body. Ms Dares takes a particularly devious pleasure in fooling your eyes by inserting more than enough intriguing bells and whistles within her design framework. For example, she showed mud brown culottes that had a series of slits that expose and hide the skin beneath as the body moves, making it an ongoing game of peekaboo. It wasn’t especially avant-garde, per se, but it demonstrated her ability to take a simple design and make it all the more special without vulgarizing the base design vision. Another outstanding design from the collection was her dark burgundy velvet dress accessorised with a narrow apple green leather belt wrapped over the shoulders and around the waist in an empire fashion.
   Cake was simply the low-key fun lingerie presentation I have seen in quite awhile. In terms of design, no new ground was broken with this collection, but much like a Betsey Johnson show in New York City, these girls vamped all over the runway and seemed to be genuinely enjoying themselves. Sometimes in fashion, innovation has to take a back seat to the proposition that fashion is also fun, and can be light-hearted when need be. This was such a case, and we all enjoyed ourselves enormously.

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