In the past few years there has an indelible rise in gothic aesthetics. From Yorgos Lanthimos’ whimsical Poor Things, to Robert Eggers’ exploration of female desire in Nosferatu and his upcoming folk-horror take on medieval werewolf mythos The Werewulf, to the controversial Emerald Fennell adaptation of “Wuthering Heights” released earlier this year.
For decades, Toronto’s fashion scene has occupied an uneasy position within the global industry. The city produces a steady stream of designers, stylists, and photographers, yet its infrastructure has historically lagged behind the scale of its creative talent.
Firefly-shaped jewels flickered on the Valentino’s SS26 runaway last season, against royal blues and dense floral prints in Alessandro Michele’s collection, aptly named Fireflies, an attempt in Michele’s own words in the show notes, to “reawaken the gaze” and “nourish imagination with political force”.
If Part 1 of our favourite content creators list circled those reshaping fashion discourse, Part 2 is about those who understand dressing as authorship.
Fashion creators in 2025 are no longer defined by fits alone. The figures shaping the conversation now operate as commentators, analysts, performers, translators and community cultivators, people who don’t just wear clothes but explain and emblemize why they matter, who they exclude, and how meaning circulates around them online.
“It’s shocking how hard you have to work to make it look like you’re not working that hard,” Rae Abunahla, better known by his DJ name Bootycornfed, tells me.
Some artists spend their lives mythologized by others. Few take the risk of narrating their story themselves. Simon Raymonde has always been the quiet engine behind some of the most influential sounds of the late twentieth century, shaping entire textures of dream pop through his work with Cocteau Twins and shepherding new voices into the world as the founder of Bella Union.
Kahlil Joseph is no novice when it comes to pushing boundaries in art. Known for his evocative and complex work on Beyoncé’s Lemonade visual album and his short feature for Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D
Egghead Republic is a surreal satire set in a reimagined 2004, where the Cold War culminated in an atomic bomb being dropped on Soviet Kazakhstan.
“I want them to like me.” I twist nervously in the desk chair as I wait to be called in for my interview with writer, performer, and Sex Worker Andrea Werhun, and director, photo-illustrator Nicole Bazuin.