JUMA Inspiration | Source: JUMA

TORONTO, Canada — Following our piece on Vancouver’s Digital Olympics earlier this week, it only makes sense that the BoF Spotlight should focus on the Great White North for our monthly inspiration from emerging designers. This month I turned to long-time friends of BoF, Alia and Jamil Juma.

The designer brother-and-sister duo are based in Toronto, not Vancouver, though they have called both cities home. They are of South Asian ancestry via Africa, having grown up tied-at-the-hip all over the world, from Los Angeles to Kinshasa, and even Almaty, Kazakhstan. Indeed, the only time they have lived apart was in university, but still only 5 hours away from each other in Toronto and Montreal. That’s a mouthful of cities to have lived in for a couple of thirtysomethings.

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Honorine Jewels by Fanny Boucher | Source: Honorine Jewels

JAIPUR, India — As we head into the festive season, we thought we’d bring a bit of sparkle into your holiday, courtesy of Fanny Boucher of India-based Honorine Jewels.

After spending a few years in the jewelry industry in Jaipur, the Pink city and capital of princely Rajasthan, India’s most colourful state, Boucher began making jewelry for her friends. These happy customers encouraged Boucher to create her own jewelry collection and seek out buyers. A few months later, Net-a-Porter picked up the Honorine Jewels collection exclusively, effectively placing Boucher on the fashion map.

When designers find their products on Net-a-Porter, magical things can happen. Buyers from around the world use the Net-a-Porter brands list as intelligence on what brands they should be watching. Indeed, since her discussions with Net-a-Porter, Boucher has been speaking to other retailers who are interested in her wares, while also setting up her company and getting her first order produced.

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Hermione de Paula, Autumn/Winter 2009 | Source: HdeP

LONDON, United Kingdom — London Fashion Week has become a veritable laboratory for fashion print specialists who have made London a hotspot for new trends in print design. Many of these designers use fashion print to build an aesthetic signature and brand identity which then forms the basis for a full ready-to-wear collection. Eley Kishimoto and Jonathan Saunders were amongst the first print designers to use this approach, and since then, Erdem Moralioglu, Peter Pilotto and Mary Katrantzou have followed in their footsteps.

One of the newest London-based print hopes is Hermione de Paula, who showed off-schedule this past September at Vauxhall Fashion Scout, which provides essential early-stage support for emerging designers to stage fashion shows in order to further propel themselves onto London’s official schedule. VFS singled out Hermione as ‘One to Watch’ and we are equally excited about her promising future.

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Saloni Lodha at BoF's Inside the Studio launch, by Alistair Allan

NEW YORK, United States — If you opened up one of those celebrity magazines — like Grazia, People or US — or clicked on any fashion website around the time of the latest Harry Potter premiere in the summer, you will have seen Emma Watson’s photo beaming back at you, in a dress by the London-based Indian designer, Saloni Lodha.

Countless magazines featured Watson’s chic look in a bold red dress, and soon enough, Saloni’s phones were ringing off the hook. Boutiques and magazines around the world were interested to know more about this emerging talent. As it turns out, Lodha had no idea that Watson was going to wear her dress, which had been bought by Watson’s stylist and then magically appeared on a red carpet one day.

The rest, as they say, is history.

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MFP logo, courtesy of Maria Francesca Pepe

LONDON, United Kingdom — Fashion East, the London-based fashion incubator program, has become known by savvy fashion buyers and editors for serving up a cool crop of hot young design talent in London each season. And, beginning this year, The Business of Fashion is providing mentoring and support to these promising talents as they enter the fashion business for the first time.

Amongst the crop of designers that we met in our first Fashion East mentoring session was alumna Maria Francesca Pepe, whose jewellery and shapely designs have been garnering the attention of fashion-forward celebrities on both sides of the Atlantic, including Lady Gaga, Roisin Murphy, Agyness Deyn and Beth Ditto.

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Behnaz Kanani

LONDON, United Kingdom — Behnaz Kanani is the name to know for buyers in search of a shoe designer with an age-old emphasis on craftsmanship paired with a modern eye. This month, our BoF logo showcases her aesthetic which mixes contrasting colours, exotic skins, and luxe leathers in immaculately-constructed shoes that are designed to catch a bit of attention.

After graduating from Cordwainers College in London in 1997, Kanani set her sights on Italy’s traditional shoe industry at Bruno Magli in Bologna to get the kind of old-world training that money can’t buy. With that technical foundation in place, she flexed her design muscle working with Sandra Choi, Creative Director at Jimmy Choo, just as the brand was starting to take off and reach uber-hot status. Then, in 2006, with brother and business partner Reza by her side, she launched her own label and has experienced promising success in the first few years of her business.

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Justin Giunta

NEW YORK, United States — For the month of June 2009, The Spotlight is on Justin Giunta, of Subversive Jewelry.

I first met Justin in the throes of a chaotic New York Fashion Week in February, after he was introduced to me by Mary Gehlhar, author of one of the must-read fashion books for any emerging designer, The Fashion Designer’s Survival Guide. Mary raved about Justin’s creativity and drive, and my late afternoon tea at the Mercer Hotel with Justin only confirmed this.

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HONG KONG, China — This month’s spotlight is on Aganovich, the designer duo made up of Nana Aganovich and Brooke Taylor, who split their time between their studio in London’s Whitechapel and an atelier at their factory just outside Hong Kong.

Like many emerging fashion brands, Aganovich has had its ups and downs and a couple of false starts. But over the past year or so, I have watched as Brooke and Nana have carefully put all of the pieces in place to re-launch with a sustainable platform in place, including angel funding, high-quality Chinese factories, solid sales support and endorsement from all the right people, including Amanda Harlech and Diane Pernet.

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