Toronto’s best bashes of 2015

1. The Fashion Gala to End All Fashion Galas

Canadian Arts and Fashion Awards, Fairmont Royal York, Jan. 31

No one ever paid much attention to the Canadian Arts and Fashion Awards. Then, in 2015, they went big. Every major name in Canadian fashion showed up, plus some heavy hitters from N.Y.C. The place was packed, the fashion statements were loud, and the party raged all night long.  

2. K.D. Lang’s Private Concert

Fundraiser for the 519 community centre, Oct. 18

Salah Bachir gathered 200 of his closest friends, called up K.D. Lang and put them together for the best non-ACC concert of the year. Lang performed six songs before an encore performance of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” raising nearly half a million for the 519, a non-profit centre for the Church and Wellesley community.  

3. The Bash in the Stacks

Book Lovers’ Ball, Toronto Reference Library, Feb. 5

It was supposed to be dinner with authors. It ended up being much more: Speed Scrabble with CanCon writers, a MakerBot lab where guests could reproduce their likeness, two caricaturists, an on-demand biographer, a magician and, by night’s end, novelist Joseph Boyden on the mike belting out “Bread and Butter.”