How absolutely lucky we were to experience the spectacular presentation put on by famous Canadian designer David Dixon during this circuit of Toronto Fashion Week. Not only was the collection beautiful, the story behind its inception was deeply moving. The “Gene” collection is meant to raise awareness for Ovarian Cancer, and encouraged the show-goers to get checked frequently and know your own body. Before the show started, a video presentation featured shots of David in his atelier preparing the collection while narrating the inspiration behind his collection. He very profoundly said that everyone knows that before we love anyone else, we must love ourselves. But before we love ourselves, we have to know ourselves, and the first step in that is knowing our genetic makeup and understanding what conditions we might be predisposed to. The short presentation ended with “This collection is for all sisters, but especially for my sister”. And that started the runway presentation.
As with his previous collections, Dixon pays a lot of attention to detail and creates beautiful silhouettes to showcase and highlight the female body. The clothes were beautiful, but the true highlight happened when the show ended. At the end, instead of the models lining up and presenting a final walk of the collection, they all congregated at the top of the runway, and David Dixon appeared with a squad of Cancer survivors. The entire tent was on its feet, clapping, cheering and simultaneously wiping away tears because the energy was so powerful in that space as David grabbed the hands of the survivors and walked the down to the end of the runway for his finale! Even as I am writing this, tears are yet again collecting in my eyes. A beautiful and emotional tribute to a sister’s life, David achieved what he set out to do: raise awareness and spark a conversation that will help countless sisters, mothers, aunts and girlfriends.
xx,
