I didn’t even know about the Mikhael Kale presentation at the Spoke Club until the day before. Thankfully a resourceful and close fashion friend alerted me to this and expertly took care of everything. Soon we were rushing out of Evan Biddel and hopping into a cab desperately hoping to make the start of the show.

I only see Mikhael’s collections at the Holt Renfrew’s LG Fashion week cocktail parties. This year it became a breakfast and I was at the office in a meeting room with my lovely coworkers discussing trade processing and business scenarios. The joys of a double life. I was really disappointed that I missed the breakfast so I didn’t want to miss the Spoke Club gig either.

We made it to the show in the nick of time. The runway room was tightly packed and had a raised runway. I knew my newbie camera skills would fail me again. I tried my best with the photos but being backlight and super close didn’t help me. TCHAD has some photos of the event including backstage shots.. The show featured a few looks from Mikhael’s Spring Summer 2010 and Fall Winter 2010 – 2011 collections.

Spring was a series of super short pastel coloured dresses. Some were strapless and details included snake-skin accents and brocade fabrics. I would wear leggings or really opaque tights with these dresses, they are a little too short for me and I love showing leg. The Mikhael Kale website has a good display of all the looks in the spring summer 2010 collection.

This was the only collection of the week that floored me. He showed a series of dead sexy dresses and contrasting minimal coats. The looks were beautiful, inventive, rich in detail and well constructed. Mikhael is the only person that can put so many design details on a garment and get away with it. It really is a gift. The dresses incorporated sheer panels, mini ruffles, reptile like fabrics, beading, applique and plastic floral like embellishments. The colour palette was only grey and black.

The finale jumpsuit with the reptile treated fabric was to die for. I would learn from Mikhael after the show that he created the fabric himself by dipping it in acrylic and cracking it to create the pattern. I can just see this man holed up in his studio for days at a time without emerging working on his creations.

I’ve always thought Mikhael Kale was one of those under the radar designers. It’s a shame more media didn’t know about this show.  Photos of Mikhael’s work is hard to come by on the Internet.  Hopefully the article “Made in Canada: Breakfast with a Whole New Generation of Designers” on Vogue.com changes that.

Mikhael Kale Fall Winter 2010

Mikhael Kale Spring Summer 2010