Do you ever find that you may be focusing on things that aren’t of great importance to the world? I know I sometimes do. Oh, it may be just a passing thought as I struggle over which shoes to put on in the morning, but I wonder nonetheless. Well, I just found a way to combine a fashionable world with good etiquette.

On August 12, for a 4th consecutive year, close to 300 ALDO employees chose to leave the designer shoes at home in favour of denim overalls – if only for a very, very brief, incognito moment – all in the name of a good cause: the complete overhaul of Moisson Montreal's headquarters.

Most of you have, by now, heard or attended B.A.B.E., but few of you know that it actually started out as a lunch idea only a few weeks before the actual event was to unfold. We thought, now that the event has passed and that most of you are already anticipating the next one, we’d let you in on the action-packed challenges we encountered.

Sometimes, life throws people in your path for a reason. It’s never fun to trip over them but if you take the time to wonder why they’re there, it can be quite the eye opener.

Over the past few months, Montreal Fashion BizVie has grown immensely, much thanks to the support of multi-talented contributors. The magazine is intended to promote local talent and give them an opportunity to speak and be heard, and it is now being recognized as such. There is no better glory than to succeed at what you set out to do. It is therefore very important to always remember to pause, take a look back and remember why and for whom you started this journey.

It's become clear, with the increasingly prominent love triangle between Hollywood, designer houses and glossy magazines, that fashion is no longer a world of its own. Where it used to be reserved for the rich and glitzy, it has now become a way of life, an expression of our feelings, of our personalities.
The principle "any publicity is good publicity" is now truer than ever. Brand marketers are now very much aware that there can be no better spokesperson for your designs than a controversial celebrity. And what better combo than fashion and edgy rock stars?

I am very happy to report that B.A.B.E. is officially SOLD out!

We have had to close the event at this point but rest assured, seeing your great and enthusiastic response to it has given us the desire to keep going! So while you may not be able to attend this one, there'll be more to come...sooner than you might think.

I’m not a stylist. I don't even care about fads. I see something in a window store or in a magazine, and I pass judgment or I adopt, but I never follow trends. I know what I like and it’s always worked for me. In fact, I much prefer to break the rules and play devil’s advocate. I’m extremely opinionated, which seems to carry quite a lot of networking power, but I didn’t study fashion, design, or even arts for that matter. I’m a pure marketer-editor who just happens to be a clothes whore and a glamourous rock n’ roller.

It may sound strange that for this second week of Twitter Effect, I choose to talk about a follower that is already so well known, it has become an establishment in Montreal. I mean after all, this column is meant to uncover our city’s hidden gems. Yet, while it may be true that it no longer needs our backing to become one of the city’s trademark happening spots, I think that because the place embodies the very essence of Montreal, it’s important to be reminded that it’s there and that we need to take good care of it if we want to ensure it remains alive and well.

Twitter, to me, contains a gold mine of information. I could even go so far as to say that it’s where my professional life unfolds, day after day. Every minute – and sometimes every second – the beeping sound of TweetDeck alerts me to a new blogpost, newsflash or random tweeple thought. I adore it. It gives me the pulse of the people who matter to my work here. That is not to say that those I don’t follow don’t matter, but maybe just that I don’t know they exist in this virtual world. And sometimes, it’s a matter of having the time to read everyone.