By Aditi Roy

Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) houses one of Canada’s most renowned fashion schools. Some TMU fashion students and alumni have taken the plunge on creating their own brands, offering the public an opportunity to buy and borrow pieces from their distinctive collections.

Ethan Cordner

Ethan Cordner is a second-year fashion major at TMU who owns an independent fashion label under his own name, featuring gothic and eerie collections. Cordner said he also offers styling services to clients under his banner distorted wardrobe and provides other in-studio services. The young designer sells graphic t-shirts, leather studded lighter accessories, distorted dog tags, intricate leather jackets and flared denim and leather pants. 

He said his recent 2025 collection titled The Midnight Prayer was inspired by his own experience with deteriorating mental health and feeling the need to remain silent due to social stigma. “I conceptualize what a man would wear at midnight, praying to God for whatever it is that they’re going through,” he added. 

The collection consists of androgynous monochromatic black pieces with layers of depth utilizing high quality leather with silver accents and zippers, lace veils, spiked stud detailing, ripped and distressed denim and eclectic patchwork. 

A self described “one man team” Cordner said he is a multifaceted artist, serving as his own brand’s illustrator, seamster, marketing head, creative director and sales man. 

Cordner said he is especially passionate about ensuring that his work is sustainable and eco-friendly. Adopting a “zero waste mentality, I don’t really throw fabric out ever…I kind of use every bit,” he said, referring to his brand as a slow fashion house prioritizing quality. The designer opts to source dead-stock materials in effort to divert waste from landfills. 

Cordner finds that sustainability isn’t a barrier in his business. He said in fact, it fuels his creativity and allows him to create one of a kind pieces. “I was just messing around with ways that I could use [my leather scraps]..I had the idea to just make a lighter holder and then they ended up becoming a very successful product, I would say, probably my most successful product,” he said. 

Cordner said he’s slowly expanding his business adding more pieces to his label and creating new collections. 

Alicia Unwin

Alicia Unwin is a fourth-year fashion student at TMU, with a concentration in design and aims to launch her designs for sale this April under her label lil little girl in red. She said the label’s name was inspired by her staple color, a trademark of her personality. The TMU artist said she’s  also open to commissions and creating high quality custom pieces. Her designs are playful and imaginative—using light pastels and charming plaid prints. 

Unwin’s intention is to release pieces to the public after her collection Pélagia releases on April 11. Pélagia being an “amalgamation between a French and a Greek word that means where the ocean meets the sand,” based on her collections fusion of a sea-toned blues and sand-like beiges. 

“The theme is imagined as the ocean meeting the sand, two elements that are very different but balance each other which I’m relating to the idea of genderfluidness in fashion,” she said.

Unwin said she has made a commitment to use at least 40 per cent dead stock in her collection to ensure that her pieces are ethically produced. Planning to use an “existing dress that I bought off of a costume designer, and then disassembling that dress and using the fabrication in my own collection,” the process of which is also shown on her active Instagram account. 

The new collection seems to fit her whimsical aesthetic, this time being more “formal and wedding inspired,” as she called it, drawing inspiration from other creatives including designer Charles Lu’s futuristic style. 

Adriana Elcena 

Adriana Elcena is a TMU design alumna who sells limited pieces from her previous collection and is looking to release new pieces this summer—around the month of June. The artist is a first generation Jamaican-St Vincentian, her work drawing heavy drawing from her Caribbean roots featuring vibrant jewel-tone colours and crochet lace detailing. 

“My great grandmother crocheted at the time, and my grandmother held on to that.. it inspired me to put crochet in my collections and have that consistent factor—crocheted lace,” she said. 

She said she is open to making custom stage pieces and has worked with local Toronto artists like Sofinarri and Erin B.  

For her latest 2025-2026 collection titled Drift and Depart, she drew inspiration from 1960s fashion—specifically, from Black flight attendants’ formal wardrobe. Elcena hand paints the patterns found throughout her pieces. “I get inspiration from my paintings, and then I transfer it to my clothing,” she says in regard to her creative process. 

She said she hasn’t lost sight of her moral obligation and ethical commitment to be a sustainable label. “I wanted to do a slow fashion brand…I’m currently starting with just pre orders, when someone orders that’s when I start making it,” she says, not wanting to waste any of her carefully crafted clothing. 

“That last collection, people [were] really shocked [that the lace was mainly from] reclaimed textiles,” adding that her signature Anell’s Dream Maxi Dress was made from bedding. 

Elcena said her next step is “bringing more awareness and bringing more attention to the brand itself, it’s time to build a bigger audience!” 

Jina Kim

Jina Kim owns the label sixnineosix, known for her surreal evening wear and so far only does custom pieces. The 2024 fashion alumna’s work is bright, dramatic and striking. Kim plays with shape distortion, dramatic patterns, her work evidently displaying her love for the “Tim Burton” aesthetic. Her models are adorned with spider-like eyelashes and clothes with vivid juxtaposition and black and white vertical-stripes. 

Kim said she feels particularly drawn to “any silhouettes that I feel [are] other worldly and I could represent my personal narrative with.” Her last two collections portrayed her fondness for velvet fabrics. “It’s not completely two different colors, but like it changes its sheen [depending] on the way the light hits,” she said.

Velvet has now become the artist’s signature moat, as the fabric carries a deeper metaphorical meaning. “So sometimes my Korean identity comes out more, and sometimes my Canadian identity is stronger, and it’s just a mix of both that represents my identity the most,” she added. 

Kim’s work has garnered the attention it deserves being featured in Vainqueur Magazine as Heated Rivalry star Nadina Bhabha wore her signature Burtonesque dress. The dress featured a tube strapless bodice coupled with dramatic lantern-like skirt dawning black and white vertical stripes. 

The artist does custom orders, also renting out her eccentric clothing for event wear. She said she is  looking to expand to street wear mixed with surreal couture in the near future also working on building her brand visibility.