MONTREAL MEANDERINGS

Because a woman can’t live on fashion and accessories alone, early last month I hustled off to Montreal for a couple of days with my cultural travelling companion event-planner extraordinaire (Party) Barbara Hershenhorn to take in the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. And yes, there was wining and dining and shopping involved. We may wear a lot of black but we aren’t nuns with a vow of abstinence. Abstinence is so overrated.

Me and Barbara at the funky Le Bremner resto in Old Montreal. It is so hot and anti-chic that it has no signage outside and is located in a fusty basement. The food is great but they don’t make any adjustments to the menu. No, I could not have the veg selection without chicken skin on top.

Special holiday packaging for Veuve Clicquot champagne, my fave bubbles, in a Montreal liquor store featuring Rome and Dallas, two cities associated with my brother-from-another-mother John “Junior” Maloney. Better pack a tote if you plan to shop for booze in Montreal. You have to buy a bag to lug your purchases.

This is not Jon Stewart on a random billboard in Montreal but sure looked like it to me.

Me at the Mapplethorpe exhibit doing my best Annie Leibovitz impersonation.

Me and super-sweet sales associate Marie Catherine Noël at the Denis Gagnon atelier on Rue Saint-Paul in Old Montreal. For moi, Gagnon is très formidable, the Rick Owens of Canada.

A prohibitively expensive but fantastic Japanese designer jacket at Cahier d Exercices on Rue Saint-Paul which is curated like Dover Street Market in New York, where I can’t afford to shop either. Old Montreal was dead, dead, dead the afternoon we shopped. We were the only people on the street -- it felt as spooky as an old episode of Twilight Zone. Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.

This is not a Picasso outtake but another billboard on a Montreal street – you don’t have to go to a museum to see art.

The ceiling at the Ritz Carlton lobby bar where we went for a smart martini references the iconic Palm Court Lounge at the Plaza Hotel in New York.

The aforementioned smart martini at the Ritz Carlton.

This has nothing to do with Montreal but I loved this painting by Colin Stark in the entry of Optical Outlook on Yorkville Ave., where I get all my eye wear.

CHRISTMAS SHOPPERS

It has been getting to look a lot like Christmas ever since Halloween. Now get a grip; that is total overkill. Having said that, I confess to dipping my twinkle toes into the early festivities.  Anything with an open bar and I am there.

Oyster bar, beauty boutique, prosecco flowing – and hello, sailor. On November 23^rd, OverCat Communications hosted Shoppers Drug Mart’s beauty boutique holiday party at Malaparte on the sixth floor of TIFF Bell Lightbox. Here I am with OverCat president Audrey Hyams Romoff, one of my all-time fave p.r. mavens.

Romoff is traditionally the chicest chick in the room, and that night was no exception. I lusted after her velvet booties, which she scored at Topshop. Alas, I don’t have a Topshop foot. It’s the reverse little-red-riding-hood curse: too big or too small but never just right.

  

Here are two young glam gals at the beauty party just to make you feel bad about yourself.

The folks at Michael Kors previewed some of their spring 2017 line – and we haven’t even got through winter 2016! Michael Kors makes the best straw totes around and I love these platforms which work if you don’t go anywhere near a spring shower.

A pair of vertiginous floral Mary Janes that are so sweet and serviceable as long as you have an Uber hovering. My back hurts just to look at them.

These bejeweled skinny jeans are way off the cool meter but are not available in Canada. Just as well. How would you launder them anyway?

I was circling this Dries Van Noten sleeveless feather duster coat at Holt Renfrew. It went on half price but I still couldn’t justify buying it. It is such a knock-out show piece that you wear it once and everyone remembers it; wear it twice and the feathers trail behind.

Rob Salem at broadcaster turned entrepreneur Gene Valaitis’s 60^th birthday party at the Spoke Club on November 18^th.

Gene and me at the party, which included happy gang members like Jesse Dylan, Gene’s fellow Morning Zoo keeper starting way back in 1987 on Q107; Lorraine Segato, Gene’s sister in law; Kid Rock; Geoffrey Dawe and Wendy Muller; John Gallagher; Rosie and Michael Levine; and Joanne Smale.

No, it’s not me but a resident at Labdara Lithuanian Nursing Home putting up her feet near the Christmas tree. Give me 20 years and it’s me in fuzzy slippers.

Some members of our unofficial whine club doing a photo op at the Distillery. The gaggle includes gal-around-town/real estate person Val Dooley; journo Rosie Levine; photographer Biserka Livaja; and irrepressible BamBoo-who Patti Habib.

You know it’s a great bash when the shoes come off. These belong to Sheila McCarthy and they were resting comfortably last Saturday in the kitchen of party hosts nonpareil Colin Mochrie and Deb McGrath.

FROM V.V. TO CHI-CHI

In fashion, there is no room for snobbery. You need to hit the highs and lows, from The Room to Value Village. Even iconic Iris Apfel will bargain with frankly-fake jewelry dealers in market stalls in New York. It’s not just for the sport of it, it makes sense.

Nobody needs to ever pay full price. If you wait for it, it will come. That’s how I scored those $1,000 Alexander Wang man-repeller sandals for $169 last summer. It was vigorous exercise and makes for a great story. I even kept the price sticker on the bottom of the shoes until they peeled off as evidence.

I stupidly left this coat behind at 290 Ion at Queen and Parliament, still a sketchy ‘hood but getting upwardly mobile now the former Marty Millionaire is becoming condo-ized. 290’s owner Sanghun Oh has superlative skill in ferreting out genius pieces at non-bankrupting price points. Like this coat, priced at $400 but so amazing I would want to tear it off the back of someone wearing it. It haunts me still.

Me and Jo-Ann Dodds, a former co-worker at the Toronto Star, foraging for treasures at Value Village. Dodds is such a master at bagging bargains at V.V., where she shops habitually, I had her write a column for the Star’s erstwhile Shopping section called Dodds and Ends, in which she chronicled her finds of the week. It was brilliant.

A fabbo and funky jacket in The Room trimmed in marabou and styled cleverly. There was apparently a pair of pants to match but why would you? You would look like you were moulting.

A glitter girl Christmas window at Saks Fifth Avenue that speaks to me way more than the terminally cute traditional ones featuring cartoony critters around the corner at Hudson’s Bay. But that is just bah-humbuggy me.

A pair of sweet rescue greyhounds outside Ed’s Real Scoop in The Beach. Note how stylish they are in their Hudson’s Bay coats. They need them; they have zero body fat. I will never know how that feels.

Boot maker par excellence Rocco P (as in Pistonesi) and George C (as in Corbo) at the 10^th anniversary cocktailer for George C. boutique on Scollard in Yorkville. Rocco P, carried exclusively at George C, created a stunning assortment of styles for this event. I own a stable full of Rocco P’s addictive cowboy boots.

These boots are not Rocco P’s – they are Fauzian Jeunesse -- but they keep calling my name. I will definitely go back to George C to interview them.

And while I am at it, I will definitely get up close and personal with these Rocco P silverados. How yummy are these?

Lisa Corbo, stylist, jewelry designer and clothing buyer for the boutique, and arguably the chicest woman in Toronto, poses at the party with TV producer Al Magee.

This parka is part rhinestone cowgirl and part bedazzled Canada Goose and all this fabulousness goes for $2,000! It’s all mine if I win a lottery or if it is drastically reduced.

Makeup artist/model/muse Myles Sexton is inevitably the most interesting guy in the room. I bow to his swag.

TRAVELLING COACH

The fashion brand Coach, noted primarily as a starter line for bags for young women before they even begin to aspire to Prada and Gucci, has re-branded with funky oversized collegiate bombers, sweaters and Mr. Rogers cardies with goofy dragon insignias.  There was a party on November 9 to celebrate the launch with a guest appearance by actor/model Dree Hemingway, whom I missed because I was on nursing home duty. 

How white am I, bookended by Traci Melchor and her sister Grace, who was on the hunt for a purse?

Bustle Clothing creative director/designer Shawn Hewson is the coolest dude in the room in his “naked ladies” brogues by Jimmy Choo and purchased in London. That’s London, Eng., not London, Ont.

Samantha Beckerman, half of the hot blonde blogger twin set, rocks a Coach Varsity jacket she’s accessorized with even more pins.

A funky faux-fur chubby jacket by Coach reminiscent of the vintage sheared-beaver I scored at Value Village one hot summer day for $40.  Gotta love V.V. Last week I bagged a chocolate brown suede coat in mint condition made in Europe for $20. Not that I was exactly coat-less – it’s like they breed in my closet -- but how could I resist?

These fine-feathered beauties are part of a collection made by jewelry designer Rita Tesolin. Seriously, how amazing are they? You would upstage everyone in the room wearing one of these. Tesolin is having a sample sale Friday November 18 through Sunday November 20 at her studio at 63 Wingold Ave., Suite 110. Well worth the schlep.

LIP SERVICE

My bad. I have been out of town visiting pals in the hinterlands and have not updated the blog for weeks.
But there will be shoes.

My tireless foot soldier Tom Sandler has been snap happy, shooting the party folk in their finery.

 

SHOE DEPARTMENT

 

Going for the golden glitter at the Literary Review Gala at 1 King West.

Put on these dancing shoes and dream in technicolour.

A black magic woman right down to her pedicure.

Silver platforms are made for an event like the Imagine Gala at the Westin Harbour Castle in support of the Pinball Clemons Foundation.

More Pinball wizardry: sexy suede stilettos.

Leapin’ lizards in pointy-toed blue.

These black-and-white crocodile cuties rock!

Leopard has always been the new black.

A lip-print installation by Canadian photographer/artist David Drebin, who debuted his revolutionary photo sculptures at Art Toronto in October.

This pet portrait spotted at Winners is not remotely revolutionary but it is so cute. Though distinctly royal, it is not a corgi.

The All Saints coat that got away. Loved, loved, loved it but it retails for about $600, and it was either buy that or pay my water bill.

Jewelry designer Rita Tesolin, the coolest woman at FashionCan Runway Shows & Yorkdale Expansion Preview. She is wearing her own bijoux and a rockin’ coat by Simon Chang.

A creepy hologram of either Slash or Alice Cooper in the men’s lounge area of Nordstrom’s at Yorkdale.

A zebra ponytailed pair of Gucci pumps at Nordstrom’s, celebrated for their shoe section.

How can you miss with this fun fur? It goes with everything. And nothing.