Fashion Cares 2008

After last year's 'Disaster in the Distillery' - an event characterized by women shivering in their best gowns in the cold May weather, snapped stilhettos, and a limp, uninspired stage show - the brain trust at Fashion Cares went on a bit of a hiatus, shifting the event to The Fall, and doing a re-think on the changes that had been made.

For this year's Fashion Cares the event was back in the comfortable confines of the Convention Centre and once again the show's emphasis was fashion mixed with outstanding musical guests. Phillip Ing is back as the creative director of the show that has become one of the stellar stand-outs in the fashion season.

This year the musical guests were Caty 'I kissed a girl' Perry, Canadian singer Kreesha Turner, and Dame Shirley Bassey with a 31 piece orchestra.

Photos from the red carpet at the beginning of the night.

Kreesha Turner was moving in and out of a dramatic pool of spill light all during one of her TV interviews. I never did catch her exactly right, but the lighting is still more expressive and three dimensional than the usual flat flash-on-camera red carpet effect.

Olympus E3, 50-200mm 2.8 lens, fill light from the FL50 flash minus one stop.

A funny moment.

We're shooting Caty Perry on the red carpet, and I'm beside well known cross-dressing columnist Enza Supermodel, who as usual has the full hair and makeup going.
Enza gets her to come over and starts whispering in Caty's ear, who's grinning going along with him. I don't know what Enza said next but all of a sudden she jumps back and blurts out "Oh my God! You're a man!"
And Enza without skipping a beat says "I'm not a man ... I'm a supermodel!"
Everyone cracked right up.

I think that was wee Caty's first intimation that this wasn't going to be her average gig :)

Here, Doug catches the moment of her realisation.

A highlight of the evening was the performance of Dame Shirley Bassie, seen here arriving for the show. She looks great, and sounded great never missing a note while filling the hall with classic 60's songs driven by her powerful voice.

Although it got off to a slow start, the show was up to previous standards mixing a Cirque du Soleil sensibility with outstanding contributions from local designers.

Photos from the show, beginning with the Haloween-themed opening, and including dancers from the National Ballet.

Proceeds from the evening go to fund AIDS research.

Photos copyright Torontowide.com. All rights reserved