Gorgeous women have strutted their stuff on catwalks in New York, London, Paris and Milan. In Canada, Montreal Fashion Week ended yesterday and Toronto fashion week organizers are preparing for a Monday start.
But in Ottawa, the runways are seeing much less action.
Last year, Ottawa had its first fashion week in May. The organization, Ottawa Fashion Week, continued with another week in November.
Then, to everybody’s surprise, a second fall fashion week appeared, Capital Fashion Week. The new week featured designers from outside Ottawa whereas Ottawa Fashion week focused more on local designers.
After the buzz surrounding the Ottawa fashion weeks last year, 2009 has definitely been a buzz-kill for any fashionista. There was no spring fashion week and there will be none this fall, which has hurt the local fashion scene.
Harmeet Singh, public relations manager of Ottawa Fashion Week, says the organization took a year off to restructure. New jobs were created and more people were brought on board, she says.
“It’s difficult to run an event when you’re in the middle of restructuring,” Singh says.
“So we just decided it’d be better to hold off, instead of doing something that wasn’t as good.”
Capital Fashion Week has a different reason for taking the year off. Sheri Chiprout, head organizer and co-founder of Capital Fashion Week, says personal projects prevented her from organizing fashion weeks this year.
But, the lack of fashion weeks has slowed the growth and exposure of the Ottawa fashion scene. Even the credibility of the fashion weeks are on the line.
Local designers and those from outside the city have fewer opportunities to showcase their work this year.
Buyers looking into the Ottawa market may also have to try harder to get in touch with designers because the one-stop-shop of fashion week has disappeared.
No fashion weeks also means that fewer people know that there is even a local fashion scene. Those already in the circle obviously know about the scene, but average people are no longer talking about it.
In fact, the buzz was so brief that some people may not have even noticed that local fashion was in the news last year.
After all, Ottawa’s fashion scene is small and has yet to break free from the looming political presence Ottawa is known for.
But organizers of the local fashion weeks disagree and say their absences aren''t affecting the fashion scene.
Local designers are still making clothes. Fashion blogs, including Girl About O-Town and Ottawa Street Style, are still going strong. Stores and boutiques, including those on Dalhousie Street and Sussex Drive, still run their regular events, including special one-day sale parties.
Organizers of Ottawa and Capital fashion also plan to have regular shows in the future, starting with spring 2010.
Singh and Chiprout both say the interest in their upcoming events show that Ottawa’s fashion scene is still strong.
But the truth is empty catwalks don’t further exposed local fashion either.
The organizations’ reputations are also being questioned. The one-year hiatus makes both local fashion weeks seem flighty and unpredictable, which isn’t exactly ideal for buyers or designers.
Chiprout disagrees and says the high quality of the shows will appeal to designers and buyers.
But high quality or not, the lack of fashion weeks this entire year can’t go unnoticed in the organizations’ history either.
Hopefully by next year, the fashion weeks will have all the kinks ironed out and will give the local fashion scene the push it deserves.
If the organizers don’t get their acts together, all those local fashionistas will continue what they’ve always been doing – packing up and going to cities with stronger fashion scenes, like Toronto, Montreal or New York City.