Holt Renfrew launches its first Public School collection with a party just as hip as the clothes

Date February 27, 2015

Holt Renfrew Public School Party — Photography by Jenna Marie Wakani

In a world full of pseudo-stars (and plenty of real ones, too), you can easily get caught up in the ticker tape of new fashion names you “should know.” Every so often, though, a name comes up that conjures the perfect aha moment—like, ah, a true star has been born. Lately, that moment is being owned by Public School, the ultra-cool unisex New York label that (with the help of Anna Wintour) is taking the fashion world by storm.

Launched as a menswear label in 2008 by designers Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne, Public School has garnered consistent acclaim from the CFDA, winning its Swarovski award for menswear in 2010 and the coveted Fashion Fund in 2013. With just two seasons of womenswear under their belt, the designers hit another home run at New York Fashion Week last month for Fall 2015.

Public School is doubling its retailers on the daily, with Holt Renfrew welcoming its launch in Canada with wide-open arms. Last night in Toronto, an after-hours party highlighted Chow and Osborne’s spring collection with school-themed décor and party guests dressed in the label’s palette of choice: black, white and more black. As students painted long division on the walls, others, specializing in fashion at the city’s creative institutes, mingled post a lecture given by the duo earlier in the day.

After the party, the afterparty literally continued at the hotel lobby, with Chow and Osborne and a gaggle of others moving on to Soho House and Thompson Hotel, partying into the wee hours of the night.