t was a packed house at the Mercedes Benz dealership on Kempt Road in Halifax last night as Atlantic Fashion Week got off to a very stylish start.

Skinny jeans and sky-high heels seemed to be the standard dress code as about 150 people came out to support local design talent.

From designer Sarah McKenna’s funky and highly wearable mini-dresses to the flowing, leather-bound creations offered up by student designers Chloe and Parris Gordon – there was no shortage of variety on the runway. –>Read the Full Article

Halifax will put its most glamorous foot forward this week, with fashion designers from all over the Atlantic Provinces descending on the city for a glitzy showcase of homegrown design talent.

“I’m very excited,” said Veronica MacIsaac, one of the designers featured in Atlantic Fashion Week, which begins today and runs through Friday,

“I can’t wait to see what some of the new designers are coming out with.”

Produced by Halifax modeling agency City Models, AFW is currently in its third season. –>Read the Full Article

Q: Do you think it will be difficult for businesses in Nova Scotia to deal with an NDP government? If so, why? If not, why not?

Angela Sotiropoulos is the director of City Models in Halifax.

“I see the changes in politics as being similar to the changes in the fashion world. Fashion is dictated by the consumer much as our government is decided by its population. Those at the helm, such as designers think they manipulate the styles but in the end it is what is being purchased. Sometimes these changes to current trends are subtle, but sometimes we, as consumers, crave a dramatic change that demands something new or the next ‘Big thing”. What the NDP will have to prove is that they are a Style – something that doesn’t fade with time – and avoid becoming a trend, as trends are something that come and go with the times never to be looked at again.” –>Read the full article

Eating up the East Coast love is all well and good for our Atlantic Canadian designers, but who can say no to a little national exposure? Not Kim Munson, Anna Gilkerson and the Sunsets on the Eastside trio, who will have their designs walked down the runway at Montreal’s Festival Mode & Design (June 17 to 20, festivalmodedesign.com) as part of the event’s inaugural cross-Canada showcase on Thursday, June 18.

The TransCanada Runway will bring together designers from Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Nunavut, Toronto, Montreal and our beloved Maritimes and marks the first time Atlantic Canada has been represented at the festival, a four-day event produced by Sensation Mode, who also put together Montreal Fashion Week. –>Read the full article

Garbed in creations from local designers, models will strut it out on the runway this weekend.

It’s the spring edition of Atlantic Fashion Week, where up-and-coming and established designers are given the canvas and the audience to appreciate their work.

While it may be news for some people that there’s a fashion industry in Atlantic Canada, it’s flourishing, said event organizer Angela Sotiropoulos. –>Read the full article

October 30

Atlantic Fashion Week kicks off

Recognition of local fashion design went from zero to 100, as two competing modelling agencies (an unusual situation) claimed they were starting the region’s first fashion week. But it was Angela Sotiropoulos—a Dal costume studies grad, former designer and owner of City Models—who came out on top by keeping the event focus local and by showcasing the works of emerging NSCAD students. After multiple nights of shows highlighting incredible clothing by local designers such as Orphanage Clothing, Deux FM, Tuttle & Leonardo, Turbine Clothing, Michelle SaintOnge and more, our style glands are salivating. Word is there’s a spring fashion week in the works. —Sue Carter Flinn

–>Read the full article

When eight strong-jawed men came lumbering down the runway in body-consuming pieces of pleated and stitched vinyl, bold panels of canary yellows and gunmetal greys, and highlights of clear cut-outs and airy silks—the fruits of designer Akshay Tyagi’s (akshaytyagi.com) labour—I knew this city’s latest go at a fashion week wasn’t in vain.

Atlantic Fashion Week, presented by City Models owner Angela Sotiropoulos (atlanticfashionweek.com), ignited with the Emerging Designer Showcase on October 30, a sold-out event that filled the Mercedes Benz dealership with fashion hungry Haligonians, a dozen featured designers, and bottles upon bottles of pink champagne. -->Read the full article

Remember when you could heat up a pot of mac ‘n’ cheese and wieners for dinner and you didn’t have to worry about whether the milk was organic, the cheese local or whether the pigs roamed freely? These days we spend a lot of time making appropriate food choices, buying from farmers’ markets and checking labels, but we don’t spend nearly as much time thinking about our clothes and where they come from. Really, does it make sense to eat your artisanal cheese while wearing an Old Navy sweater?

Clothing might seem frivolous when compared to the omnivore’s dilemma, but it’s not. Like food, everything you purchase clothing-wise has environmental, cultural and social consequences. But many of us would also rather stay home than wear a hand-woven hemp sack and Birkenstocks (no offense). Fashion should be fun and playful and expressive and creative. Good design should be democratic and available for all, not just the rich—and even the big stores are making moves: there’s Isaac Mizrahi fashion at Target, avant-garde Comme des Garçons creating collections at H&M, and Jo Fresh (available at Atlantic Superstores) just showed their popular inexpensive lines at Toronto Fashion Week. –>Read the full article

So does Halifax have a style? Angela Sotiropoulos, director of Atlantic Fashion Week, says the city is a big melting pot, but one trend is definitely on the rise.

“I have noticed there is an eco-push in the community,” she said, pointing to two of Fashion Week’s designers, who are all about environmentally friendly fashion.

Kim Munson of Halifax-based Orphanage Clothing recycles clothing by creating new, one-of-a-kind fashions out of old clothes. Her work is sold at Love, Me Boutique and Lost and Found in Halifax. –>Read the full article.

New York City. Milan. Halifax?

As the city’s first official Atlantic Fashion Week gets underway over the next four days, organizers hope it will put the city on the map as a destination to showcase the region’s best designers.

But is polar-fleece Halifax, with its conservative reputation, ready for high fashion?

“There is a lot of fashion in the city, and it really depends how open-minded you are to what you consider fashion,” said Angela Sotiropoulos, Atlantic Fashion Week director.

“Even people who are anti-fashion are making a conscious choice. That’s a style. Everything in a thrift store was a garment from some higher-end store.”

The 34-year-old owner of City Models says Halifax is in the midst of an upward swing towards fashion. She points to the opening of several boutiques — like Love, Me boutique, which only carries handmade, Canadian items in downtown Halifax — and the Swedish-owned inexpensive fashion chain H&M, opening soon in Mic Mac Mall. –>Read the Complete Article