Tommy Ton
Encyclopedia
Tommy Ton is a Canadian photographer known for his fashion blog
Jak & Jil, and his street style
coverage of fashion week
s on Style.com
and GQ.com. His favorite subjects are fashion editors, the likes of Carine Roitfeld
, and Anna Dello Russo
. He is represented by New York City
-based talent agency The Collective Shift
, and his images are licensed by Trunk Archive
, an image licensing agency also based in New York City.
to Vietnamese Canadian
parents. When Ton was 13 years old, he was asked by his sister to record FashionTelevision
. Tom Ford
appeared in the segment that Ton was recording, where Ford began expressing his views on women, and sexuality. Impressed by Ford's ability to speak eloquently with carefully chosen words about his collection, Ton's interest in fashion began.
Although Ton did not receive formal training in photography, he educated himself by attending digital photography classes and met with friends who did graphic design to pursue a career in fashion and photography.
Holt Renfrew
. During his stint working at the women's accessory department, he was spotted by Barbara Atkin, a Vice President of Fashion Direction, of Holt Refrew, which subsequently landed him a job in the department store's buying office furthering his career in fashion industry.
s, Ton conceived Jak & Jil. The site was originally intended to be a lifestyle website
featuring products and people in Toronto. Although different from the current iteration of Jak & Jil, it attracted the attention of local business owner Lynda Latner. Latner runs www.vintagecouture.com, a website and a showroom that sells high-end vintage garments. Tommy was hired to help Latner to expand her business. In 2007, Latner offered to send Ton to London and Paris to attended fashion week, which became the first opportunity to expand his practice internationally. Ton was tired of taking head-to-toe photographs, which became the convention of documenting street style popularized by Scott Schuman of The Sartorialist
, and Asian street-style websites and blog
s. To aesthetically and conceptually differentiate his photographs from those of other style bloggers, Ton started taking candid photographs. He favored landscape photographs to portraits photographs and focused on the details of the outfit (such as contrasting patterns of the lining of the coat, or intricate details of the heels) rather than the whole ensemble. To accommodate and give more weight to his fashion week photographs, he renovated his website to its current blog format. Ton's new approach to street style photography, coupled with a redesigned website, quickly received attention from other bloggers like Susie Lai of Susie Bubble, and helped him to attract wider audience for his photography.
-based high-end retail chain Lane Crawford
, who gave Ton his breakthrough into the fashion industry, asking Ton to shoot Lane Crawford's Spring/Summer 2009 campaign. After his successful deal with Lane Crawford, in Fall/Winter 2009 Ton received the honor of gracing the front-row of a Dolce and Gabbana fashion show, along with several other influential bloggers. This moment signaled a paradigm shift in fashion journalism. Following the precedent that Dolce and Gabbana set, Ton began receiving calls from other fashion houses that wanted him to shoot their fashion shows. Reflecting Ton's international prominence, publications such as New York Times and The Boston Globe
began requesting and running his photographs, widening his influence beyond the internet into printed media.
editor-in-chief Dirk Standen asked Ton to cover fashion week for Style.com
. and GQ.com. Scott Schuman of The Sartorialist
, who had previously held the position, was preparing to leave to focus on his personal projects. Since then, Ton remains the main contributor of fashion week street style coverage for both Style.com, and GQ.com, effectively making him the de facto photographer of record for fashion week street style.
Fashion blog
-Definition:A fashion blog can cover many things such as specific items of clothing and accessories, trends in various apparel markets , celebrity fashion choices and street fashion trends...
Jak & Jil, and his street style
Street fashion
Street fashion is a term used to describe fashion that is considered to have emerged not from studios, but from the grassroots. Street fashion is generally associated with youth culture, . Japanese street fashion sustains multiple simultaneous highly diverse fashion movements at any given time....
coverage of fashion week
Fashion Week
A fashion week is a fashion industry event, lasting approximately one week, which allows fashion designers, brands or "houses" to display their latest collections in runway shows and buyers and the media to take a look at the latest trends. Most importantly, these events let the industry know...
s on Style.com
Style.com
Style.com is a fashion website. It was formerly the online site for the fashion magazine Vogue and [W] W magazine featuring online versions of some of the magazine's content as well as internet-exclusive material such as event photographs and style-related articles, before Vogue developed its own...
and GQ.com. His favorite subjects are fashion editors, the likes of Carine Roitfeld
Carine Roitfeld
Carine Roitfeld was the Editor-in-Chief of French Vogue from 2001 to January 21, 2011. A former fashion model and writer, she announced her resignation on December 17, 2010; she was succeeded by Emmanuelle Alt.- Family background :...
, and Anna Dello Russo
Anna Dello Russo
Anna Dello Russo is the editor-at-large and creative consultant for . Dello Russo was born in Bari, and currently resides in Milan.She is self-described as a "passionate fashionista" and has been described by Helmut Newton as a "fashion maniac". Dello Russo is often featured in popular street style...
. He is represented by New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
-based talent agency The Collective Shift
The Collective Shift
The Collective Shift is a New York City based company founded in January 2008 by Jae Choi. The company represents creative talent and image makers who work in a range of fields including fashion, advertising, and fine art...
, and his images are licensed by Trunk Archive
Trunk Archive
Trunk Archive is an image licensing agency, based in New York City. The Archive contains over 120,000 images.Many of Trunk Archive’s images have been featured in Condé Nast Publications, Hearst, and Hachette titles, as well as in advertising campaigns such as Bath & Body Works, Panasonic, Crabtree...
, an image licensing agency also based in New York City.
Early life and education
Tommy Ton was born in a suburb of TorontoToronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
to Vietnamese Canadian
Vietnamese Canadian
Mainstream Vietnamese communities began arriving in Canada in the mid 1970s and early 1980s as refugees or boat people following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, though a couple thousand were already living in Quebec before then, most of whom were students...
parents. When Ton was 13 years old, he was asked by his sister to record FashionTelevision
FashionTelevision
FashionTelevision, also known as FT, is a Canadian-produced special interest show focusing on fashion. The show,created by Jay Levine in 1985 is hosted by Jeanne Beker...
. Tom Ford
Tom Ford
Thomas Carlyle "Tom" Ford is an American fashion designer and film director. He gained international fame for his turnaround of the Gucci fashion house and the creation of the Tom Ford label before directing the Oscar-nominated film A Single Man.-Early life :Tom Ford was born August 27, 1961 in...
appeared in the segment that Ton was recording, where Ford began expressing his views on women, and sexuality. Impressed by Ford's ability to speak eloquently with carefully chosen words about his collection, Ton's interest in fashion began.
Although Ton did not receive formal training in photography, he educated himself by attending digital photography classes and met with friends who did graphic design to pursue a career in fashion and photography.
Early career
Following his new-found passion, he began pursuing various positions in the fashion industry. Despite his young age, at age 15, he interned with a local fashion designer, Wayne Clark, which led to his first job at the women's accessory department of an upscale Canadian department storeDepartment store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...
Holt Renfrew
Holt Renfrew
Holt Renfrew is a chain of high-end Canadian department stores. It is comparable to Barneys New York and Saks Fifth Avenue in the United States, and to two other upmarket chains owned by the same family, Britain's Selfridges and Ireland's Brown Thomas...
. During his stint working at the women's accessory department, he was spotted by Barbara Atkin, a Vice President of Fashion Direction, of Holt Refrew, which subsequently landed him a job in the department store's buying office furthering his career in fashion industry.
Jak & Jil
In 2005, encouraged by the rise of online magazineOnline magazine
An online magazine shares some features with a blog and also with online newspapers, but can usually be distinguished by its approach to editorial control...
s, Ton conceived Jak & Jil. The site was originally intended to be a lifestyle website
Lifestyle magazine
Lifestyle magazine is an umbrella term for popular magazines concerned with lifestyle. There is no universally accepted definition of what constitutes a lifestyle magazine: it is often used to encompass a number of men's magazines, women's magazines and magazines about health and fitness, tourism,...
featuring products and people in Toronto. Although different from the current iteration of Jak & Jil, it attracted the attention of local business owner Lynda Latner. Latner runs www.vintagecouture.com, a website and a showroom that sells high-end vintage garments. Tommy was hired to help Latner to expand her business. In 2007, Latner offered to send Ton to London and Paris to attended fashion week, which became the first opportunity to expand his practice internationally. Ton was tired of taking head-to-toe photographs, which became the convention of documenting street style popularized by Scott Schuman of The Sartorialist
The Sartorialist
"The Sartorialist" is a fashion blog by Scott Schuman in New York. After leaving a fashion sales position to take care of his daughter in 2005, he began carrying a digital camera around on the streets of New York City, taking pictures of people who had dressed in a way that caught his eye, and then...
, and Asian street-style websites and blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
s. To aesthetically and conceptually differentiate his photographs from those of other style bloggers, Ton started taking candid photographs. He favored landscape photographs to portraits photographs and focused on the details of the outfit (such as contrasting patterns of the lining of the coat, or intricate details of the heels) rather than the whole ensemble. To accommodate and give more weight to his fashion week photographs, he renovated his website to its current blog format. Ton's new approach to street style photography, coupled with a redesigned website, quickly received attention from other bloggers like Susie Lai of Susie Bubble, and helped him to attract wider audience for his photography.
Breakthrough and international prominence
Among the quickly rising readership of his blog was the head of marketing at Hong KongHong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
-based high-end retail chain Lane Crawford
Lane Crawford
Lane Crawford is a retailing company with specialty stores selling designer label luxury goods in Hong Kong and Beijing, China....
, who gave Ton his breakthrough into the fashion industry, asking Ton to shoot Lane Crawford's Spring/Summer 2009 campaign. After his successful deal with Lane Crawford, in Fall/Winter 2009 Ton received the honor of gracing the front-row of a Dolce and Gabbana fashion show, along with several other influential bloggers. This moment signaled a paradigm shift in fashion journalism. Following the precedent that Dolce and Gabbana set, Ton began receiving calls from other fashion houses that wanted him to shoot their fashion shows. Reflecting Ton's international prominence, publications such as New York Times and The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
began requesting and running his photographs, widening his influence beyond the internet into printed media.
Style.com
Style.comStyle.com
Style.com is a fashion website. It was formerly the online site for the fashion magazine Vogue and [W] W magazine featuring online versions of some of the magazine's content as well as internet-exclusive material such as event photographs and style-related articles, before Vogue developed its own...
editor-in-chief Dirk Standen asked Ton to cover fashion week for Style.com
Style.com
Style.com is a fashion website. It was formerly the online site for the fashion magazine Vogue and [W] W magazine featuring online versions of some of the magazine's content as well as internet-exclusive material such as event photographs and style-related articles, before Vogue developed its own...
. and GQ.com. Scott Schuman of The Sartorialist
The Sartorialist
"The Sartorialist" is a fashion blog by Scott Schuman in New York. After leaving a fashion sales position to take care of his daughter in 2005, he began carrying a digital camera around on the streets of New York City, taking pictures of people who had dressed in a way that caught his eye, and then...
, who had previously held the position, was preparing to leave to focus on his personal projects. Since then, Ton remains the main contributor of fashion week street style coverage for both Style.com, and GQ.com, effectively making him the de facto photographer of record for fashion week street style.