Vanja Vasic, executive director of FAT Arts and Fashion Week gives a word Fat a whole new meaning in the fashion industry.

Fat is the word least associated with the positive side of fashion. However, Vanja Vasic, executive director of FAT Arts and Fashion Week - a festival featuring Canadian and international designers and artists - has managed to turn a dirty word in the fashion industry into something celebratory.

Standing outside the Drake Lab on Toronto's Queen Street West, one of the many festival venues across the city, the international designer said, "That's the point of the festival, because to us FAT is the opposite of the mainstream and the norm. It's a celebration of different female figures. It's a celebration of diversity - diversity of perspectives, diversity of artists and designers. And I think it's now become a good word."

Fashion funding is a growing concern in Canada. Though it is home to many talented individuals of the fashion fraternity, they lose this talent to the greener pastures of other eminent fashion capitals of the world like New York, London and Paris. In a digital age when foreign ideas and merchandise are more accessible than ever before, events like FAT help nurture, define, market and celebrate Canada's own designers and fashion industry, giving rising stars the chance to shine without the pressure of commercial success.

"That is what is interesting about the festival because it's not necessarily about the commercial, it's about the experimentation and the art and the freedom to play with fashion," said Vasic.

From its inception in 2005 at a bar on King Street West, to taking over a 15,000-square-feet industrial warehouse in Toronto's west-end and adding an additional two days to its four-day line-up, FAT has grown to include not just a runway presentation but also film, art and performance.

"It's really exciting to put fashion through many different platforms, explore it through many different ways," said Vasic.