NRT Fashions || AFW 10/11

Words by Linda Sui Lem

Photography © Faby Martin 2010

As a designer Nicole Rita Tomney has given us a lot to appreciate. After attending the Helen Lefeaux School of Fashion Design, specializing in couture, which unfortunately closed halfway through her program Tomney was determined and continued her studies at Blanche MacDonald, both schools located in Vancouver. Her impeccable detail and cohesiveness can be attributed to her training and her perseverance.

NRT stood out the most for the second evening of Alberta Fashion Week in that the collection was clear and tight with its vision allowing the audience to appreciate the designs. The collection conveyed maturity and mixed couture with ready-to-wear appeal.  Much of the style from her previous F/W season that garnished attention and praise was carried over to the new season, as a skirt constructed with exaggerated wave-like draping was a staple in the latest NRT collection.

The collection named ‘Escrime’, which is French, translates to fencing, referring to elegant English sword sport. Each models donned masks remniscent of the protective gear worn in the sport, and custom made by Tomney. The masks drew runway parallels to the Victor and Rolf Fall 2006 collection. The masks linked all the designs and were made from mesh and fabrics  matched with dresses and shifts with coordinating lacing.

For the first time, we see Tomney using color. The pallet included peach, grey, pink and ivory in a variety of fabrics to flow with the previous colors. The stand out piece, with appreciative sighs and whispers from the audience was a strapless dress with pink bodice and stiff skirt in grey; made from a crinoline-like material with wave-like perfection that swayed with the model’s gait. As the previous collection had only one pair of pants, NRT showed more bottoms this season. Trousers, capri pants and funky paper bag style shorts were  a few of the ‘bottom’ styles Tomney tried.

NRT also had another addition to her designer repetoire, that being men’s apparel. Designs such as cargo pants, shorts and bleached denim jeans were worn by a muscular male model whose presence on the runway was quite dispparate to the waif like models in pastel finery. Jeans have not been a common thing on the Alberta Fashion Week runway before and are a feat in themselves so we are proud to see a designer take a stab at it.

Despite a spill on the runway, the model walked away with grace and closed the show arm in arm with Tomney. We were all very appreciative of the inventive nature of the collection and hope to see much more from Tomney. Her strong craftsmanship and beautiful designs are sure to keep us coming back for more.