When it comes to fashion, TIFF is no Cannes

There is little doubt that the Toronto International Film Festival, revving up for its 39th year next week, now rivals Cannes as the most significant event on the film industry’s calendar. From a pure fashion perspective, however, how does our fest measure up?

Certainly the stars do reliably come out in full and shine on us at TIFF. This year, apparently, we can look forward to the possibility of bumping into Julianne Moore, Salma Hayek, Diane Keaton, Keira Knightley, Reese Witherspoon, Juliette Binoche or Jennifer Aniston fitting in a little shopping on Bloor St. with Tina Fey or Vanessa Redgrave. Or perhaps we can look forward to seeing the likes of Michael Douglas, Robert Pattinson, Viggo Mortensen, Jake Gyllenhaal, John Travolta or Benedict Cumberbatch downing a nightcap with Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino at the Shangri-La. This year, we may have even upped our star-worthiness by flexing our muscle at rival Telluride and insisting on showing films for the first few nights of our fest that are true world premieres.

And yet, as important as the festival has become to the industry — unlike, say, the Academy Awards — TIFF has yet to emerge as a significant fashion event to those media who cover the big international red carpet affairs. Moreover, when it comes to fashion, at least in the minds of the stars (and of those who dress them), certainly TIFF is no Cannes.

(Image: cute homecoming dresses )

Look at the lovely and ever beautifully attired Jessica Chastain, for instance. At Cannes, in May, the luminous redhead posed on the red carpet for the paparazzi in a flowing, purple asymmetrical Elie Saab couture gown, like an actress playing a Hollywood screen siren, so over-the-top glam was the dress. In contrast, Chastain’s also lovely, but much more scaled down turquoise knee-length wraparound Versace number for the red carpet at TIFF 2013. Same gorgeous girl, much more subdued the pose — and while the dress was indeed lovely and flattering, it was something one might wear out to dinner, rather than an ensemble for the fashion history books.

Similarly, for the red carpet in Venice, Mia Wasikowska wowed in a black lace halter gown with a theatrical train, while last year in Toronto, the same actress was cute and on trend in a fitted Azzedine Alaia safety orange shift.

Last year’s TIFF saw a lot of crop tops, leather and brights — all the kind of street-savvy, Fall/Winter 2013 day-to-night wear that says, “yes, this is a party, but a working one,” where you have to be up the next morning for an early meeting, rather than lounging with more champagne in the sun.

Of course there have been some fashion catastrophes here at TIFF over the years, with notoriously rumpled Bill Murray and Mike Myers repeat offenders in the “I don’t give a fig what I have on” category. In 2009, Ellen Page showed up in a Keith Richards T-shirt under a menswear vest and Juliette Lewis gave us the finger in a fuchsia bra and fedora with ripped Daisy Duke denim shorts. (It was not a great year.) But overall to my mind, the most inappropriately dressed “stars” over the years at TIFF have been the entertainment reporters from the red carpet who presume to dress as if they themselves were nominated for Best Picture, and this was the Oscars (come to think of it, those same reporters shouldn’t be wearing gowns at the Oscars either).

World-class anxious as we tend to be about whether we are sufficiently fabulous, I don’t know that we should necessarily be offended by the fact that we are not Cannes. Cities get the film festivals they deserve, each with their own vibe and unwritten fashion code. If Cannes is still the apex of big-gown red-carpet glam, Venice and Berlin notable for avant-garde displays of Euro-chic (think Tilda Swinton in something complex by Proenza Schouler), and Sundance and Telluride less urban/urbane and more mountain-town casual, then Toronto — a city still more comfortable with street chic than full-blown glamour — can hardly expect to find itself ruling the red carpet.

But I, for one, think that’s a good thing. Like the city itself, which is more fun to know than pretty to look at, it’s our lack of pretension and offhand chic that makes us worthy of the spotlight. What will be fun, as always, is to see just how that gets interpreted on the red carpet by all the stars at next week’s TIFF.