Tweezerman » The Backseat Stylers | Toronto Fashion & Style Blog

Swag For Days: TIFF 2012 Gifting Lounges

by The Backseat Stylers | September 17th, 2012

Limited edition Tiffany & Co. x Yorkdale Shopping Centre bracelet at Tastemakers Lounge

And there goes TIFF for another year. After 10 days of failed Ryan Gosling/Joseph Gordon-Levitt/Zac Efron stalking and minimal actual film watching, all I have to show for my efforts is bags and bags of swag. #Firstworldproblems, right? Here’s a recap of my tour of the TIFF gifting lounges this year and some of my favourite swag items, not because I’m bragging but because I’m still in awe myself. TIFF was like Christmas in September for celebrities, VIPs of various sorts, and lucky media types like yours truly.

TASTEMAKERS LOUNGE

My first TIFF gifting lounge stop was at Tastemakers Lounge by rock-it promotions. “Keep calm and swag on” was the motto. Easier said than done; it’s hard to play it cool when surrounded by so much sweet swag. There were swanky Tiffany & Co. bracelets from Yorkdale Shopping Centre, cute bra and panty sets from La Senza, as well as Indeed Labs‘ full product range, including peptalash (longer, thicker and fuller lashes? yes please!). The team from John Allan’s men’s spa came out in full force providing complimentary services, while Demeter was on hand with its fun range of scents, including ‘Blueberry Muffin’ and ‘Laundromat’.

ESSENTIALS LOUNGE

Next up was the Essentials Lounge by Esther Garnick PR, where guests were treated to gluten-free food truck goodies by Gourmet Bitches, faux lashes by Winks Eyelash Boutique and even spray tanning sessions. We were also loaded up with 2 overflowing (and extremely heavy) swag bags, one titled “Survival” and the other “Recovery”. Inside were everything from a Flawless Complexion Makeup Kit by Benefit Cosmetics to The Socializer‘s Spotlight Exfoliator by Elizabeth Grant, all of which I can’t wait to try. A case of vitaminwater even showed up on my doorstep a few days later; as a Spark addict, I was overjoyed.

SWAROVSKI FASHION SUITE

My next stop was the Swarovski Fashion Suite at the brand new Shangri-La Hotel, where celebrities and their stylists visit to add the type of sparkle only Swarovski crystal can bring to their TIFF red carpet looks. There on display was the Kingdom of Jewels catwalk collection, as well as the Bond 50th anniversary and Skyfall (the next James Bond film) collections. As always, I was blown away by the ornate catwalk pieces and very tempted by the latest offerings for fall.

IT LOUNGE

NKPR‘s IT Lounge was the final stop on my TIFF gifting lounge tour this year. For the first time, the lounge featured a portrait studio where guests had their photos taken by the likes of world-renowned fashion photographer Patrick Demarchelier. After a much-needed makeup touch-up by MAC Cosmetics, I had the pleasure of being snapped by photographer Norman Wong, and was rather pleased with the results. I also scored some jewelry by lia sophia and beauty tools by Tweezerman, got a nail polish change and eyebrow clean-up, and even fueled up at the Yogurty’s frozen yogurt station.

Blogger Anita Clarke getting touched up by MAC Cosmetics before her close-up with Norman Wong

C’est tout! Thanks to these incredible gifting lounges, I have just about enough beauty and hair samples to last me until TIFF 2013. And then we’ll do it all over again…

xx, S

Image Credits: Images #1, 3 and 4 courtesy of rock-it promo; all others by The Backseat Stylers

Events

Happy Birthday to Us! We Celebrated Three Years of Style With Style Blog and The Souls of My Shoes

by The Backseat Stylers | August 13th, 2012

On Tuesday, August 7, we celebrated Three Years of Style at the Thompson Toronto Rooftop Lounge, co-hosted by Nelia Belkova of Style Blog, Kimberly Lyn of The Souls of My Shoes and yours truly in honour of our joint 3-year anniversaries. You came out for the festivities in full force and knocked our Louboutin stilettos off with your overwhelming support…and incredibly stylish get-ups!

We were honoured to celebrate our blog birthday with so many of our favourite fashion industry folks, including designers John Muscat and Jennifer Wells of LINE Knitwear and Monica Mei of Aime, many of the city’s fashion writers and PR superstars, a blogger contingent that included Anita Clarke of I Want – I Got, Jay Strut of the eponymous blog, and Richard Fabregui and Marc Piercey of Toronto is Fashion, and more. It was also a huge pleasure to chat with you lovely readers and Twitter friends, many of whom we were meeting in person for the very first time.

With all the love you showed us, we couldn’t let you go home empty-handed. The first 50 guests to arrive each snagged a rather epic (in our humble opinion) swag bag featuring Ardell eyelashes, an eLUXE discount card, essence cosmetics make-up, a copy of FLARE Magazine‘s August 2012 issue, Goody Double Wear elastics, John Frieda hair products, a Nella Bella handbag hook, a Roots iTunes playlist redemption code, Tweezerman tweezers, and a bottle of vitaminwater Zero.

We also awarded our most stylish attendees with $650 worth of prizes. Our grand prize winner, Aya McMillan, took home a $250 eLUXE gift card and a Nella Bella handbag, while Jessica Chiu, Liane Fong and Diego R. each won $100 gift cards from Yorkdale Shopping Centre, Danier Leather and Roots. And as if that wasn’t already enough, we also drew Wendy Leung‘s name in our draw for a fabulous $550 LINE Knitwear leather jacket. Colour us jealous!

After an evening of such fabulous fun, we’d like to offer our heartfelt thanks to all our readers and friends who celebrated with us atop the Thompson rooftop – it meant the world to us! Thank you too to all the brands who supported Three Years of Style, Sheila Hui for all her hard work, and You Just Got Spotted for the fantastic photos to remember it all by. Not to mention lots of love to our co-hosts, Nelia and Kimberly, the very best blogging BFFs we could ever ask for. An honourable mention to Mother Nature as well for providing a stunning sunset and perfect weather for a rooftop party.

The countdown to our 4th anniversary bash next year officially begins…now!