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by The Backseat Stylers | May 31st, 2013 
Julia Monson of Julia Monson, Toronto
Last week on the Lookbook, it was all abouts shorts, shorts, shorts. This week? Summery frocks and bare gams.
Julia served up a look that was part angel, part surfer girl, donning a blue abstract print dress and matching floral headband. Cara‘s ensemble was just as eye-catching, with her palm tree print number and fierce lace-up sandals.
Gracie sported what she termed a “psychadelic” gemstone print dress under a leather biker jacket – obviously a year-round necessity. Bianca couldn’t resist a touch of leather too; she decided to go sweet this week, with an off-the-shoulder rose-print frock and an unexpected leather ball cap. Nice touch.

Kimberly Lyn of The Souls Of My Shoes, Toronto

Gracie Carroll of Gracie Carroll, Toronto

Anonymous by Ania B., Calgary
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by The Backseat Stylers | April 26th, 2013 
Ania Boniecka of Ania.B, Victoria
Just when we thought we had the aesthetics of our favourite Canadian style bloggers all figured out, one of them trotted out a delightfully unexpected get-up.
Ania, who regularly serves up one fierce look after another, has a penchant for dark colours and leather, and whom we’ve never seen crack a smile on her blog, blew us away this week with one of the cutest personal style posts we’ve featured to date. In it, she’s grinning from ear to ear, wearing a watermelon sweater and floral print cap, and carrying a skateboard she adorably confesses to not knowing how to ride. Cute overload? Not a chance. In fact, now that we’ve seen this side of Ania, we’re hoping she’ll come out to play more often.
How about you, dear readers – new season, fresh look?

Anik Lacasse-Richard of Montreal In Style, Montreal

Krystin Lee of Suburban Faux Pas, Toronto

Bianca Venerayan of Kastor & Pollux, Toronto
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by The Backseat Stylers | April 18th, 2013 
“Nice jacket”: two words that literally made my week, uttered by Viktor Horsting (or was it Rolf Snoeren? It was all such a giddy blur.) to me. The jacket in question? A mustard yellow blazer with contrast black piping designed by Viktor & Rolf themselves. The Amsterdam-based duo was in town earlier this week for a very well-attended meet-and-greet with Toronto’s fashion set at The Room at The Bay.
With HBC President Bonnie Brooks and VP / Buying Director of The Room Nicholas Mellamphy as hosts and DJ Mia Moretti spinning her magic, partygoers that included the inimitable Jeanne Beker, FASHION Magazine’s EIC Bernadette Morra and socialites Stacey Kimel and Suzanne Rogers spent the evening chatting with the charming Dutch guests-of-honour, sipping on champagne and admiring the V&R wares.
Dr. Lisa Airan and PR maven Suzanne Cohon stole the sartorial show with brightly-coloured frocks, the former in an orange Carven dress with cutouts and the latter in a fuchsia Roksanda Ilincic number (last seen on Ginnifer Goodwin!). The usually cool as a cucumber blogger Anita Clarke chose a peplum Roland Mouret to meet her fashion idols, while the effortlessly chic stylist Amy Patel paired her Margiela x H&M bodysuit with denim overalls for the occasion. We would be remiss if we didn’t mention blogger Jay Strut, who showed up in a heavily embellished Balmain jacket that made our jaws drop.
Check out the gallery below for some of our favourite looks from the night.
  
Image Credit: George Pimentel
 
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by The Backseat Stylers | March 18th, 2013 
Yours truly with Roksanda Ilincic
Roksanda Ilincic made a one-day jaunt to Toronto last week for a fête in her honour at The Room at The Bay. The Serbian-born, London-based womenswear designer brought with her a charming disposition and highly covetable Fall 2013 collection that both won over the city’s fashion set.
Not that she didn’t already have big fans here. Socialite Stacey Kimel, blogger Nelia Belkova and Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fashion Director Suzanne Timmins were all decked out in Ilincic’s unmistakably chic and colourful wares at the invite-only cocktail party. The statuesque designer herself chose a whimsical printed pink gown for the occasion, a design from the Fall runway collection that just debuted in London last month.
Those of us without the pleasure of Ilincic pieces in our closets (yet!) still showed up in our Thursday best: Jenna Naumovich sported the to-die-for, limited edition Giuseppe Zanotti for Kanye West ‘Cruel Summer’ heels, while Jessica Chiu donned a printed Prabal Gurung frock that made our hearts go pitter-patter. Yours truly decided on a LRD by another London-based designer, Mary Katrantzou, while T wore a patterned velvet blazer by Club Monaco.
Merely a day after The Room’s latest shindig, while we were still basking in the glow of meeting the lovely Roksanda, came news of the next: a month from now, on April 16, featuring Viktor & Rolf. Mark your calendars!

Hudson’s Bay Company’s Suzanne Timmins with Stacey Kimel
 
CTV’s Angie Smith and The Room’s Jenna Naumovich

Kimberly Lyn, FLARE Magazine’s Ryan M. Cheung, Nelia Belkova, me and The Genteel’s Irene Kim

Jessica Chiu and The Room’s Steven Baughan
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by The Backseat Stylers | March 1st, 2013 
Cara McLeay of A Fashion Love Affair, Vancouver
Who knew black leather could be so versatile?
This week, Libby – accompanied by the equally well-dressed Kate – looked super chic for a friend’s birthday in a black dress (or skirt?) with a perfectly fitted leather top. Vanessa, who it seems is never not wearing leather, paired her leather pants with an eye-catching flame-print shirt, while Liz braved the cold in a cute skirt.
Finally, one cannot speak of black leather without mentioning biker jackets. Ania wore hers over a minimalist black and white ensemble, providing a nice contrast to the pretty pastels on Lily.

Ania Boniecka of Ania.B, Calgary

Liz Clark of Elizabeth Victoria Clark, Toronto

Libby Winchester of House of Winchester, Halifax and Kate McLean of O My Heart, New Brunswick
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by The Backseat Stylers | January 2nd, 2013 
What a year 2012 was! It started with a Toronto Fashion Week runway walk and ended with some Tiffany & Co. hardware. In between, we attended a lot of events, made some lovely new friends, celebrated our 3-year anniversary, wrote 373 blog posts, and more than doubled our reach. Not too shabby, by our measure.
Here’s a look back at our favourite moments from the past year. Thanks to all of you lovely readers, brands, PR folks and fellow blogger friends for showing us so much love. We’re excited for what 2013 will bring, and hope you’ll stick with us to find out!

S’s runway model moment for VAWKKIN at Toronto Fashion Week

The side of S’s head was on an episode of America’s Next Top Model. It was awesome.

A stylish road trip to The Somerset Collection in Troy, MI? Yes please!

T and model Irina Lazareanu, giving their best smizes.

Celebrating Three Years of Style with Style Blog, The Souls of My Shoes and our lovely readers…happy birthday to us! (Image Credit: You Just Got Spotted)
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by The Backseat Stylers | December 7th, 2012 
Ivy Xu for Lookbook.nu, Vancouver
Canadian winters are worth enduring for one reason and one reason alone: boots! (And possibly layering opportunities.) This week, our favourite style bloggers showed off some fabulous cold weather footwear.
Jay’s Diesel black lace-up boots are too good to be true, and were made for his delightfully oversized camo jacket. While the mixing of black and brown normally makes me shudder, Anik’s two-tone stacked heels are definitely an exception to the rule. I’m also digging the gently scuffed look of the boots, which I’m thinking was either achieved during a holiday shopping excursion at an impossibly crowded mall or at a rodeo. Caillianne’s Balenciaga shoes aren’t exactly boots, but they’re not not boots, either. They simply defy categorization, and that in itself is something worth appreciating.

Anik Lacasse-Richard of Montreal In Style, Montreal

Kimberly Lyn of The Souls of My Shoes, Toronto

Liz Clark for Elizabeth Victoria Clark, Toronto
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by The Backseat Stylers | December 5th, 2012 
The sight of just about anything wrapped in Tiffany blue is always exciting, so when an invitation to a private soirée for me and my best blogging buds arrived, you can be sure it elicited a chorus of squeals. Nelia of Style Blog, Kimberly of The Souls of My Shoes, T and me were summoned recently to the Tiffany & Co. flagship on Bloor Street in Toronto for the boutique’s first ever private viewing session.
Dressed in our finest LBDs – the perfect backdrops to diamonds, diamonds and more Tiffany diamonds – we arrived at the store for our big date with the lovely Andrea Hopson, Vice President, Canada at Tiffany & Co. The next few hours were a blur of jewelry, cake and champagne, all the ingredients for a lovely evening spent behind the heavily-secured doors of a closed Tiffany boutique that was open exclusively just for us. Our very own sparkling playground for the night!
We took full advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, adorning ourselves with stunning piece after stunning piece. Diamond this, 24-karat gold that…it was the stuff of dreams. We paraded around in Elsa Peretti Diamonds by the Yard, tried on Jean Schlumberger‘s insanely gorgeous bracelets, and pretty much died over a $22,000 gold Elsa Peretti bone cuff that none of us could bear to part with.
We even held an impromptu photo session in the leather goods section – Andrea included! – complete with oversized Tiffany sunglasses, chic Tiffany handbags and, of course, our usual duck faces. It was, undoubtedly, one of the most surreal experiences of my blogging career to date. Thank you, Tiffany & Co., for hosting us. It’s been a week now, and I’m still pinching myself!
  
T, Kimberly Lyn, Andrea Hopson, Nelia Belkova and me
 
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by The Backseat Stylers | November 30th, 2012 
Vanessa Hong of The Haute Pursuit, Vancouver/Beijing
As temperatures drop further and further down the thermometer, the wardrobe rotations of Canada’s style bloggers are getting darker and darker. Out with the colour-blocking, in with the black. But when everyone’s wearing black on black on black, a vibrant pop of colour is an uplifting sign that we may be chilled to the bone, but our sartorial spirit refuses to be dampened.
Vanessa‘s bright yellow sweater, Caillianne‘s multi-coloured tie-dye pants and Nelia‘s emerald green statement necklace brightened up their ensembles this week, and put a smile on my face too.

Kimberly Lyn of The Souls of My Shoes (with George Antonopoulos) by George Pimentel, Toronto

Caillianne Beckerman of Beckerman Bite Plate, Toronto

Nelia Belkova of Style Blog, Toronto
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by The Backseat Stylers | November 23rd, 2012 
Yours truly with presenters Glen Baxter and Hans Koechling and host Rob Lowe
On November 19, the 2012 edition of the P&G Beauty & Grooming Awards were held at The Carlu in Toronto. Hosted by the extremely handsome actor and Brat Pack member Rob Lowe, the Awards brought together the biggest names in the Canadian beauty, grooming and fashion industries to honour the year’s best print and online content in 19 categories.

Stacey McKenzie and Jully Black
Assisting Lowe (who was kissed on by all the ladies who graced the stage and was a good sport about it) in presenting the Tiffany & Co. crystal trophies were familiar faces like the iconic Jeanne Beker, Greta Constantine-clad singer Jully Black, supermodel Stacey McKenzie and boxer Mary Spencer.

And the winners are…
1. Best Art Direction: Tanya Watt, FLARE
2. Best New Face: Jenna Earle, Next Models
3. Best Beauty Feature of a Magazine or Newspaper – Trend/Profile (English): Adriana Ermter; FLARE, Back by Popular Demand
4. Best Beauty Feature of a Magazine or Newspaper – Trend/Profile (French): Sophie St-Laurent; Châtelaine, BB La crème a tout faire
5. Best Beauty Feature of a Magazine or Newspaper – Scientific/Technical (English): Michelle Villett; FLARE, Best Beauty Innovations of 2011
6. Best Beauty Feature of a Magazine or Newspaper – Scientific/Technical (French): Micheline Lortie; Châtelaine, La nature en pot
7. Best Beauty Editor of a Magazine: Lesa Hannah; FASHION Magazine
8. Best Male Grooming Feature: Greg Hudson; Sharp Magazine, The Sharp Guide to Grooming: Stepping it Up
9. Hair Stylist of the Year: Justin German
10. Best Fashion Feature of a Magazine or Newspaper (English): Sarah Nicole Prickett; FASHION Magazine, Bro Code
11. Best Fashion Feature of a Magazine or Newspaper (French): Elsa Vecchi; Dress to Kill, Spécial Design: Rad Hourani
12. Best Fashion Editor of a Magazine: George Antonopoulos, FASHION Magazine
13. Best Male Fashion Feature: Yang Goh; Sharp Magazine, Style Manual
14. Best Beauty or Fashion Blog (English): Sharon Ng Hayes; The Backseat Stylers
15. Best Beauty or Fashion Blog (French): Anik Lacasse-Richard; Montreal in Style
16. Best Beauty or Fashion Website: Randi Bergman, FashionMagazine.com
17. Photographer of the Year: Malina Corpadean
18. Make-up Artist of the Year: Nicolas Blanchet
19. Best Magazine Cover: Dress to Kill, Stéphane Le Duc, Winter 2011

With Kimberly Lyn in Arthur Mendonça (left) and Nelia Belkova in Lanvin x H&M (right)
You may have noticed a familiar name in there for winner of the Best Beauty or Fashion Blog (English) category: The Backseat Stylers. WOOHOO! What an incredible honour it was for us to be named finalists alongside our blogger friends Nelia Belkova of Style Blog and Lolitta Dandoy of Fashion Is Everywhere, but to win?
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THE BACKSEAT STYLERS BY T & S
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