BACKSTAGE WITH LIGNES DE FUITE AT FASHION ART TORONTO S/S 24

There’s a specific kind of energy when you go backstage at a fashion show. I've been a part of a few in my years working in fashion, and at Fashion Art Toronto, I experienced something that I believe you can't get anywhere else. It’s not polished or quiet whatsoever. It was loud, vibrant, and unapologetic. A collision of steam from irons, bodies moving too fast in too small spaces, designers half-present because their minds are already on the runway. And somewhere inside all of that chaos, Montréal-based Lignes de Fuite was building something that felt different.

BARCODE stepped into that world during 1664 Fashion Week and stayed long enough to feel the pulse!

We caught moments with designers like WJ Crosson, Process Visual, MY.SWEEVEN, Gio Caci and Carré Bourgogne. Each one is moving in a completely different direction, but somehow still in conversation with each other. One look leaned into sculptural distortion, another into goth destruction, another into hyper-clean denim cuts. No hierarchy, no obvious “lead voice, just a collaboration of creativity.

WRITTEN BY ROCHELLE ALLEN

Photography by Rochelle Allen

Lignes de Fuite doesn’t operate like a traditional collective; you can feel that immediately. There’s no uniform aesthetic, no pressure to “fit” into a singular vision. What connects everyone is the process of designers in the middle of becoming, still shaping their language, still testing how far they can push before something breaks (or finally clicks). That philosophy was evident in every rack, every rushed fitting, and every last-minute adjustment.

Backstage, it felt less like a lineup and more like a network forming in real time.

That’s really the core of Lignes de Fuite. The name comes from “lines of flight”, the idea of breaking away, rerouting, refusing fixed paths. You could see that in how designers spoke about their work. No one was chasing trends. If anything, they were actively resisting them. There’s a quiet discipline to building something original without the safety net of what’s already working.

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Designer: Carré Bourgogne

And that’s where Lignes de Fuite hits different. It’s not just about giving emerging designers a platform; it’s about providing them with structure and guidance that fosters their creativity without stifling it. Mentorship without control. Visibility without forcing them into something digestible for the masses. That tension between freedom vs. rigor was alive and felt backstage.

Fashion Art Toronto as a whole continues to hold space for that kind of experimentation. For 19 years, it’s built a reputation for platforming designers who don’t always fit into the traditional fashion system, across identity, material, performance, and politics. But what stood out this season was how playful everything felt. There was spectacle for the sake of it, which made things very entertaining but still very intentionally curated. Lignes de Fuite fit perfectly into that ecosystem. Not as an “emerging group to watch,” but as a growing infrastructure looking to make a splash in the Toronto fashion scene. From early experimental shows to full-on mentoring programs, retail models, and now physical studio spaces, they’re building something that actually supports longevity, not just moments.

Designer: WJ Crosson

Designers weren’t just presenting a collection, they were building a future they could sustain. When the looks finally hit the runway, the rawness stayed intact, and nothing felt over-edited. You could trace each piece back to the hands that made it, the ideas that shaped it, the risks that hadn’t been sanded down to fix a box.

Because in a landscape that’s constantly trying to streamline creativity into something marketable, Lignes de Fuite is still holding space for the messy middle. The part where things aren’t resolved yet, the part where identity, technique, and vision are still in flux. That’s where the real work happens! Backstage at FAT S/S 24, you could see it all unfolding in such a beautiful and chaotic way, and I believe those aspects are what make fashion so exciting!