Toronto Fashion Week hits pause on event

Toronto Fashion Week (TFW) announced on Tuesday that it is hitting pause on its bi-annual event, leaving many Canadian designers without a platform to showcase their fall/winter collections.

Frequented by Canadian favourites such as Christopher Bates, Hilary MacMillan, Lesley Hampton and Narces, the event was expected to kick off in just a few weeks.
“In order to best support the needs of the fashion community here in Canada, we’ve made the very difficult decision to pause production of our bi-annual event in order to rethink the platform and focus on how best to engage the industry, support designers and resonate with consumers across the country,” TFW said, in a post on Facebook.
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“We remain steadfast in our resolve to continue to passionately support the Toronto community and champion the Canadian industry overall, as well as nurture the relationships we have built and maintained since the inception of Toronto Fashion Week, twenty years ago.”

Toronto Fashion Week has, in fact, faced hurdles for some years now.

IMG first dropped the event in July 2016, pulling the plug due to a lack of local support, it explained at the time, following in the foot steps of Montreal Fashion Week, which was canceled in 2013.

IMG Canada had operated Toronto Fashion Week in collaboration with IMG Fashion since 2012.

While the future of the event was unclear for several months, the official Toronto fashion showcase was then purchased by Peter Freed, president of Freed Developments, in December 2016.

Also joining Freed in the dynamic ownership group was Suzanne Cohen, co-founder of ASC Public Relations, and Carolyn Quinn, who previously acted as the director of fashion events and properties for IMG Canada.

Following this latest cancelation announcement, it is not clear if TFW will make a return in September for the Spring/Summer 2021 collections.

Toronto Fashion Week hits pause on event

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