PSA: This month, The Stack skips its usual format.
Every year, for about 10 days, Toronto becomes a revolving door of premieres, galas, parties, fashion events, dinners, and the inevitable, yet always unplanned, late-night stop. This year, there were days when I was rushing between events all across the city, and nights when a single invite somehow morphed into four different destinations.
Because TIFF is an occasion that demands its own rules, I am setting my standard step-by-step styling structure aside. Instead of building a carefully curated stack, let’s look at three very different nights to see what actually happens once the jewellery leaves the house.
The Premiere
The crown jewel of TIFF is, of course, the films, and getting invited to a red carpet premiere is a highly coveted affair. There is simply something about arriving at a world premiere, with the crowds outside and that electric TIFF energy around the theatre, that makes you feel, if only for a moment, like a bit of a celebrity yourself.
Naturally, being the watch girl that I am, my first thought when planning for a premiere is, “What timepiece am I going to wear?” I wanted my wristwear to be polished without becoming overly traditional, and lucky for me, the newest interpretation of the Rado Anatom fit the bill perfectly.
A little backstory: the Anatom has been part of Rado’s design language since 1983, built around a curved sapphire crystal and a shape designed to follow the wrist. The version I was lucky enough to get my hands on brings that shape into a more compact 27.5 mm case. The glossy black ceramic is offset by yellow-gold-coloured accents running through the bracelet, giving the watch much more sparkle than I usually associate with an all-black timepiece. The black lacquered dial is set with 11 Top Wesselton diamonds and gold-coloured hands, while inside is Rado’s automatic R592 calibre with a 50-hour power reserve and antimagnetic hairspring.
Against the deep green of my dress – a mermaid evening gown with a deep V and a train for that dramatic red carpet flair – the black worked almost like a neutral, while the gold accents provided the perfect tone to play off of. I paired the watch with a gold-toned Alexis Bittar cuff, alongside a bracelet passed down from my grandmother, and gold rings inherited from my family, including my favourite rose-shaped ring, and stopped there. Well, almost… I admit that I did briefly contemplate adding an oversized Kate Spade gold-toned bow cuff to my other wrist, but I took my own “edit” advice and held back.
Photo credit: Zahra Hemraj
In an effort to appear more elegant, there is often a tendency to make everything smaller and more delicate for galas and premieres. There is certainly a place for that, and while technically this Anatom is smaller, I enjoyed that it still makes a statement. Elegant does not always have to mean wristwear that disappears into the wrist.
Four Stops, One Stack
If the premieres are the crown jewel of TIFF, the parties are the sparkle. Without them, it really would not be festival season.
The first stop on this particular evening was the inaugural FECC Gala, marking the finale of the 19th International Fashion Encounter. I spent the first few hours chatting with guests associated with the gala’s charity partner, CNIB, connecting with alumni from The Fashion Academy, and meeting creatives from every corner of Toronto’s fashion world. More to come on those runway presentations in a future article, but the one thing I will say now is that after spending the last few days with the FECC team, I feel genuinely excited about where Canadian fashion is heading next.
The evening also started with a unique styling dilemma: what exactly do you wear to a gala when you know you are going to be surrounded by literal fashion industry insiders? And, perhaps more importantly, what do you wear when that gala is only the first stop of a very long night?
I did not want anything too traditional or too delicate, which brought me to one of my all-time favourite watches, the Accutron Legacy 521. The brown leather on mine reminds me of the watches my mom used to wear when I was growing up, so there is a certain nostalgia to it. That feels fitting for a design rooted in 1960, when the original 521 debuted as Accutron’s first offset asymmetrical “TV watch.” Elvis Presley was also a fan. The modern Legacy keeps that unusual 32.8 by 32.5 mm case shape and uses a Swiss-made 26-jewel automatic movement, while my brown lizard-embossed leather strap leans into the vintage feel.
Photo credit: Zahra Hemraj
The 521 is dressy without feeling overly styled and incredibly comfortable to wear. It is classic, but there is enough character in that asymmetrical shape to stop it from becoming forgettable. Maybe just enough Elvis energy for a night that was still getting started.
On the opposite wrist, I went considerably less classic. I layered oversized wooden bangles with a delicate hand chain and an Alex and Ani bracelet, mixing scale and materials on purpose rather than trying to make everything match.
Photo credit: Zahra Hemraj
The geometric shape of the Accutron and the oversized wooden bangles, with their mix of square and rounded forms, worked with the structure and print of the dress. The delicate hand chain softened things just enough, adding the elegance I wanted for a gala without pushing the whole look into something overly formal.
From FECC, I headed to the Toronto Life Best Dressed Party at the University Club, where the style ranged from formalwear to much more eclectic interpretations of evening dressing. Case in point: wrestling prize belts, literal moving wings and full faux-fur outfits. Here, the oversized wooden bangles almost became the star of the stack. They were bold and unexpected enough to hold their own in a room where personal style was very much the point, but still felt relaxed and individual rather than overly polished.
The next stop was The Hollywood Reporter’s opening-night cocktail party for their TIFF Green Room at 1 Hotel Toronto, presented by Don Julio. Honestly, this was the party I had the least information about going in, but it ended up being my absolute favourite event of the night. It felt like everyone had gotten the memo that this was the place to be, and we were all just there to have a good night, no hidden agenda in sight. I caught up with old friends, saw familiar faces, made some new connections and eventually reached that point in the evening where I stopped thinking about where I was supposed to go next.
By this point, my wrist stack was working for a completely different reason. It was comfortable enough that I barely thought about it, but it had not lost any of its impact. The shine was still there, the geometric pairing of the watch and bangles had not disappeared into the outfit, and the hand chain still caught the light. It could fit into the room as easily as it could stand out when someone actually looked at it. And most importantly, it still felt like me.
The venue also made the night because of the memories I associated with it. I had spent countless nights there back when it was the Thompson Hotel, and I still remember wandering over to the Thompson Diner for late-night truffle mac & cheese after whatever party had come before. With The Hollywood Reporter party being my last official stop, the evening started to feel a lot like those nights from way back when. Except this time, without the diner, we ended up at Epoch in the Ritz-Carlton with the friends I had started the evening with, a few new ones picked up along the way, and others joining us from different TIFF events.
By the end of the night, nothing about the stack felt like it belonged to a gala from several hours earlier. It still looked fresh and was fully intact. Nothing had been so delicate or fragile that I had to spend the night worrying about it.
A truffle pizza and an order of fries later, my Accutron 521, my very sore feet and I were finally on our way home.
Maximum Drama
Later in the week came another TIFF event, this time with a dress code that called for Maximum Drama. Being FASHION’s highly anticipated “The Ones” party, it was a night that could not be missed, nor was it one where the fashion could take a back seat.
When I first saw the theme, I thought maximum drama required maximum jewellery. But then I had a thought I couldn’t shake: sometimes the most dramatic thing you can do is go completely bare.
Bare wrist, that is.
To be clear, while going bare-wristed can be a deliberate styling choice, it does mean that the rest of the outfit has to be absolutely on point. I initially tried to build a look around a bright pink ruffled dress with a deep V-neck wrap bodice that essentially had wings. But once I put it on, it just didn’t feel right for the venue. My own “edit” rule, which applies just as much to the wardrobe as it does to the wrist, saved me. Instead, I pivoted to a fluid pink and mauve satin dress with an abstract print, a cowl neckline, and sculptural ruching through the waist, finished with a thigh-high slit.
Because the wrist was sitting this one out, I shifted the drama upward. I paired the dress with a Stella & Dot necklace, which was essentially a bold bib of graduated crystal medallions in an oxidized silver setting that read heavy and textured rather than delicate. I complemented it with matching drop crystal earrings, and since the brief was “maximum drama,” I went a little extra with my makeup: tri-colour eyeshadow, a strong dark brow, and a vibrant pink lip.
Photo credit: Zahra Hemraj
At one point during the evening, a new friend stopped me to ask how many carats I was wearing and jokingly wondered whether I had a bodyguard with me. Considering there wasn’t a single diamond in that necklace, it made me smile. Proof that some nights call for less stack and more sparkle.
The TIFF Takeaway
As is pretty clear, none of these nights followed the same formula. And while I still love building a wrist piece by piece, TIFF gave me a slightly different way to think about The Stack. The question wasn’t whether every bracelet perfectly complemented the watch. It was whether the whole thing still made sense several hours, several rooms, and endless conversations later.
For more stack inspo, follow along on IG: @torontowatchgirl.
And with that, TIFF has now officially wrapped up and I am off to get some much-needed relaxation, Roger Ebert’s Two Weeks in the Midday Sun in hand for a little more film-festival chaos, Cannes edition. This time, thankfully, without the sore feet.
Featured in this month’s Stack are the Rado Anatom R10263702, the Accutron Legacy 521, an Alexis Bittar cuff, Alex and Ani bracelet, and Stella & Dot statement necklace, alongside vintage and personal jewellery from the author’s collection.
