Fashion + Jewelry: Arthur Mendonça + Polar Bear Diamond

Ah, Fashion Week. You know all the big names, but sometimes it’s the discovery of new talent that excites most. Enter Arthur Mendonça, a Toronto-based designer who had his first FW showing in New York on Feb. 7: Chinese New Year! Being of Chinese origin, Reuben Tom Kee, creative director of Mendonça’s presenting sponsor Polar Bear Diamond (part of Canada’s Basal Diamond Group), took this as a good sign. Better still, PBD sent Tom Kee jewelry designs down the runway along with Mendonça’s fashion.

Fashion designer Arthur Mendonça and Polar Bear Diamond’s creative director and designer Reuben Tom Kee

Photo: Toni Rumore

How did the two designers find each other? A PBD ad campaign featuring Miss Canada International 2003, Lynsey Bennett, caught the eye of Mendonça’s sponsorship agent, and the collaboration was born.

Miss Canada 2003, Lynsey Bennett, with Polar Bear Diamond’s Reuben Tom Kee

Photo courtesy of Reuben Tom Kee

Mendonça’s Fall/Winter 2008 collection features clean lines of beautifully tailored pieces with a mix of menswear inspirations (including a newly defined “three-piece suit”: jacket, pants + skirt), conspicuous zippers à la Marc Jacobs, and feminine frocks lovingly rendered in lush fabrics—purples, yellows, and blues on a neutral palette of black and grays. Kudos to the socially responsible designer: As part of Mendonça’s Gotham foray, he made a donation to The New York Women’s Foundation. JCK had a front-row seat: