Sid Neigum showed his collection in the sunny studio space at the Toronto Fashion Week tents yesterday afternoon, with guests that included fellow designers Ashley Rowe and Amanda Lew Kee (sporting a neon yellow Cambridge satchel), hair stylist and fashionable gent Tony Pham and shopgirl Jaclyn Genovese. The room was well lit, but not so bright that it required sunglasses—we spotted at least five guests (including Robin Kay) wearing theirs indoors. Neigum’s look is fairly typical of what you might expect to see on a dude (or woman) in Berlin or the Lower East Side: asymmetric zippers, long tunics and slim-fitting leather jackets.
His pieces are so unisex, he even had Canadian model Tara Gill (in town for the Holt’s show) walk down the runway. There were ivory cardigans and charcoal zip-ups among Neigum’s more avant-garde pieces, but our favourites included a black wool coat with leather patches and leather laces at the wrists, a black collegiate jacket and a Henley with a covered placket and suede shoulders. We were impressed with the collection, but couldn’t get behind a pair of drop-crotch pants (when will designers realize they look ridiculous?). Though Neigum is based in Toronto, our seatmate, makeup artist Robert Weir, bemoaned the fact that he doesn’t actually sell in Toronto stores. Hear that, retailers? Toronto creatives are just as outré as an artist co-op in Berlin or New York.
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