Fashion Cares Resurrected
Zoe Whittall details the return of Canada’s most notoriously glamourous fundraiser

My one experience with Fashion Cares, the 22-year-running fundraiser, involved dating a caterer who stole me some Channel No.5 from the swag bags. All of our mothers got to smell rich for Christmas that year. I feel some karmic debt is owed for my sins, so I curiously investigated what went wrong last year. Even I, so tragically out of the loop, had heard it was a terribly unfashionable crash-and-burn.

The combination of bad weather, a chilly open-air venue in the Distillery District and a creative shift away from its fashion elements, were all factors in the low turnout and a lack of cash raised. When I ask dashing philanthropist and entrepreneur Michael King, the new chair of Fashion Cares, what went wrong last year, he summarizes wryly, “21 can be a difficult year.”

Jeanne Beker, Canada’s own TV queen of haute couture who has long since been associated with the event, is hopeful the event will outlive it’s growing pains. “I’m looking forward to the spirit of fashion coming back, because that’s something that waned last year. I was dismayed at the way things were executed and produced last year. It was so unlike what we had been used to under the direction of Phillip Ing, it became a music show.”

But all seems aligned for this year’s installment of Fashion Cares to rise from the ashes of last year’s tragedy — after all, the event is responsible for more than $10 million in donations for the AIDS Committee of Toronto. With that amount of fundraising dollars at stake this Toronto tradition was not going to go down without a fight. For it’s 22nd year, King is enlisting a varied and talented mix of fresh new talent as well as crucial Fashion Cares alumni.

“I got a lot of requests after last year. When you walk away from something, you begin to appreciate it again. It’s fun to do, it’s rewarding,” says Phillip Ing, the artistic director responsible for almost all of the visionary shows throughout Fashion Cares’ history who is back at the helm after a one year hiatus. “I left because it was the 20th anniversary, and I’d been there since year one. It seemed like a good time to step down and let fresh blood step into it.”

King insists Ing is part of his plan to bring back “the best of the best.” Flattered, Ing is still passionate about the event and happy to be returning to what has become one of the biggest AIDS fundraisers in the world. “For me, it’s about a commitment to social change. Fashion Cares is still very grassroots even though it’s a big event. It’s all done by hundreds of volunteers, not a giant agency. It’s still very much grounded in the community.”

Ing has ingratiated himself with Toronto’s gay community through Fashion Cares. He has watched it battle HIV and seen how HIV/AIDS charities have adapted over the years. “Twenty years ago it was attacking this community but today there is still a sense of urgency,” reminds Ing. It’s that ever-present urgency that has, for many years, allowed him to efficiently tap both Toronto’s gay and fashion communities to create something that has a worldwide reputation. ”It’s amazing how the fashion community has come together — there are models in their 50s, 60s and some this year who are 15,” says Ing, delighting in the event’s legacy and its importance to the next generation of fashion activists.

This year Fashion Cares will morph for the first time into Fashion sCares — a Hitchcock-inspired theme just in time for Halloween. Ing is thrilled, having been inspired while watching Turner Classic Movies. “I was watching The Birds and it went off like a light bulb: Hitchcock movies have all those iconic elements. His heroines are always those repressed blondes like Kim Novak and Grace Kelly. There’s really a chic-ness to Hitchcock movies that’s amazing, elegant and the settings are fun. They’re so fashion-friendly.” So far Ing says his team of fashionistas and drag queens are adapting splendidly to his horrific cinematic inspiration.

Beker is looking forward to not just the iconic theme and big name designers, but how the gay community will come out dressed to the nines. “People in the gay community have a wonderful and artistic talent, I’m really looking forward to what their going to hit us with when it comes to their own personal dressing up.” This year 25 fabulous costumed folks at the event will be hand-picked at the door for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to strut down the Fashion Cares runway and be critiqued by a panel of celebrity judges in their first ever Halloween costume contest walk-off much to Beker’s delight. “It seemed to get so corporate in the last few years and I’m looking forward to the creativity of everyone involved.”

At the end of the day Fashion Cares ticket holders come out in droves to be entertained by sheer spectacle and this year it promises to deliver on that principle again. Michael King says the audience should expect “a Halloween weekend spectacle — a fancily dressed costumed affair. It’s haute couture meets Hitchcock, and a marvellous excuse to exhibit sartorial excess for a community that loves any excuse to dress up.”

Cranking the swank factor to 11 is Elton John’s husband David Furnish, who is set to host, and notorious James Bond theme queen Shirley Bassey who will be the night’s pièce de résistance. “Dame Shirley is legendary and it really is a great honour to have her as this year’s headlining performer. Shirley will sing four songs — so it is truly a rare opportunity to see such an amazing icon perform up close and personal,” says King. Newcomer Kreesha Turner, dubbed “the Canadian Rhianna,” and local hipster phenoms Fritz Helder & the Phantoms will also be performing with faux-lesbo Katey “I kissed a girl so my boyfriend could watch” Perry rounding out this year’s lineup. Although some would rather get stabbed in the shower than hear Perry’s homo-baiting song one more time, King happily justifies that “it was the #1 song of the summer, plus she’s sex on a stick.” Perry, like all parts of Fashion Cares, is an example that even if something isn’t your cup of tea, at the very least it’ll be sexily entertaining and something to be experienced first hand.


Fashion sCares starts at 8pm on Sat. Nov. 1 at the Metro Toronto Convention Center, 255 Front St. W. Tickets at www.ticketmaster.ca. Info: www.fashioncares.com

Zoe Whitall’s idea of high fashion involves the bargain bin at H&M but she’s always hoping for a gay best friend to show her the way. Her fifth book, Precordial Thump, launches Wed. Dec. 3 at the Gladstone Hotel.