Platinum (LIVE)

Date May 28, 2009

Photography by Carl W. Heindl / www.eroder.com

Discretely tucked above a Queen Street West shop, Canada’s Red Bull offices held an intimate concert by larger-than-life performers Fritz Helder & The Phantoms. The crowd toasted the weekend and waited for the Toronto outfit to take the stage, taking in designs from Greta Constantine, Jeremy Laing, Nada, Oligarchy, Pink Cobra, Evan Biddell, Label, Franke for Chasse Gardée, Jaime Galindo and Hoi Bo, all of which were to be auctioned off to benefit Fashion Cares and ACT (AIDS Committee of Toronto).

While we had the inside scoop that the group would be dressed in Greta Constantine, plenty of the designers were milling about—Jeremy Laing, Evan Bidell, Nada Shepherd, Philip Sparks. Accessory designer Jaime Galindo, who was sporting one of his signature wound zipper necklaces, was there chatting with stylist George Antonopoulos (our fave!) and Tommy Ton of jakandjil.com (as we said hello, we were never more thankful we wore our more vertiginous sandals).

While MuchMusic’s Sarah Taylor, and MTV’s Jessi Cruickshank and Dan Levy, looked for good spots to watch the show, we spotted Project Runway Canada’s Jessica Biffi introducing herself to fellow reality runner-up, So You Think You Can Dance Canada’s Miles Faber. We left the two comparing notes on their respective shows, and found a spot ourselves. Just as the crowd was ready to overheat, Nelly Furtado introduced the band (she recently signed them to her Nelstar Music label), asking the crowd if they were “ready to work?” The group played favourites like “Sex Robot” and “Making a Scene,” from their album Greatest Hits: Platinum Edition and we couldn’t get them out of our head the rest of the weekend. As the dance floor shook, Greta Constantine’s Kirk Pickersgill stood just off-stage laughing and taking photos of his and Stephen Wong’s designs.