Thursday night, fashion lovers and too-cool-for-Caoc people of Toronto gathered at 442 Dufferin Street for Ashley Rowe’s Spring/Summer presentation: Psychedelic: a tie-dye world. The warehouse setting, void of front row politics and flashing lights, spoke to a different kind of fashion – one that breaches the art world. Fashion as art is not foreign to Ashley Rowe as the designer often refers to pieces of clothing as blank canvases –  which she’s splattered paint upon, doused in grease, smoked like a Christmas ham, and this time around, tie-dyed the shit out of.

Peroni’s were going down like ice cold water as The Notorious XX spun well, Biggie and The XX mashups. The models walked out two by two, circled around the hearth-like bathtub ablaze, casting shadows along the smokey background. The entire presentation looked like a scene out of The Mists of Avalon; the models priestesses and Rowe, Morgaine of the Fairies. What were people around the room talking about? The neon red lipstick. Why? It was pretty cool – and, it was the only thing other than the psychedelic sheaths that stood out in the shadows. Smartly played however it was; finally a fashion show where no one talks about who wore what, and no one could see who looked good and who did not. All that mattered was the collection.

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