Close friends and regular readers of this blog are aware that when it comes to fashion, I have a soft spot. Despite possessing little to zero expertise on the art form, I am fascinated by its artistic merit, social significance and often hilariously pretentious culture.

Last night, some friends and I went to a fashion show that was held in the Fermenting Cellar building of the Distillery district (because fermenting and high fashion go together like chocolate chip pancakes and breakfast sausages).

Presented as part of Toronto Alternative Fashion Week, the show featured the works of eight local independent designers.

But instead of witnessing a catwalk of elegant, graceful models dressed in sophisticated couture designs, the low-rent circus of a show more closely resembled that one episode of Family Matters where Laura (who turned to porn once the series was cancelled, as I recently learned from VH1's Childhood Sitcom Stars: Where Are They Now?) joins Urkell's alter-ago, Stefan (who taught me that switching to contact lenses and having good posture will get you some Winslow ass), in Paris to model in a fashion show.

The models were painfully amateur, many of them doing their best 'Blue Steel' impressions, and completely unironically at that. The clothes were, for the most part, scattered and uninspired. (For God's sakes, one male model was dressed in a fucking Yogi Bear-like fur vest with matching pants, while another resembled an Elizabethan era version of the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz.)

If Project Runway's Heidi Klum were there last night, she would have declared to the eight designers in her deadpan Elfish staccato, "You are ALL out."

After the show, I raced to the restroom to relieve my tortured bladder (I had to hold it in for the entire hour-duration of the show, because the restroom access was blocked off by the catwalk) where a very chatty, very Mullet-y, Joe Dirt-like character decided to take the urinal beside me.

Joe Dirt: That was a wicked show.
Me: Uh, yeah.
Joe Dirt: Were you at the show?
Me: Yes, yes I was.
Joe Dirt: Wicked. Yeah, what was the name of it?
Me: Magpie.
Joe Dirt: Magpie! That's It! Magpie... what is that, some kind of bird?
Me: Uh, yeah.
Joe Dirt: Maaaagpie. (Zips up and promptly exits bathroom without washing his hands.)

This brief exchange can only have one logical explanation: I was being filmed for an episode of Spike TV's "Oblivious", a hidden game show where host/hack comedian Regan Burns asks unsuspecting strangers random trivia questions and the person wins $20 for each question he or she answers correctly.

This theory seems mildly plausible, especially since Burns typically dons some ridiculous, over-the-top guise (Joe Dirt acted like some sort of bizarre caricacture of the overtly heterosexual male.. well, as much of an act a guy can pull off when he's engaging in an open discussion about fashion at the urinals) and asks a series of random, peculiar questions.

But if that were the case, I would have walked out of that restroom with $60 in my pocket instead of a rejuvenated bladder and a deeply perplexed look.