Photo: tfw on Instagram 

In breaking Canadian fashion news, Toronto Fashion Week has sadly been cancelled. According to CBC, IMG Canada has pulled its support, after organizing the semi-annual fashion extravagnza since 2012.

Before the 2012 takeover by IMG, Toronto Fashion Week had been managed by the non-profit Fashion Design Council of Canada. After 13 years with FDCC at the helm, IMG had taken the reigns and managed the Canadian fashion industry event.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Catherine Bennett, senior vice-president and managing director of IMG Fashion Events & Properties, stated that the sponsor will no longer run TFW.

“As we continue to evolve our portfolio of fashion events around the world, we’ve made the decision to no longer produce Toronto Fashion Week,” she stated. “We really felt that our Canadian fashion footprint was not generating the local commercial funding that we really required in order for us to continue producing the event to the highest standard that, really, the industry deserves and the designers in Toronto deserve.”

In addition to the runway shows, the emerging Mercedes-Benz Start Up program has also unfortunately ended. The initiative, which honoured rising design talent and would offer a $30,000 prize, had been awarded to Canadian designers like Sid Neigum in the past.