toronto backwards video

Toronto gets its own reverse film project

Sometimes, it's nice to look at your city in a different way. Make time to stop and smell the roses. Ride a bike instead of driving. Or just walk up the main drag backwards and see how many funny stares you can get. Toronto fashion brand NOZO did exactly that in a new promotional video clip - then reversed the footage, making for a dreamlike stroll down (or up?) Yonge St.

The lookbook video was created to show off NOZO's spring/summer 2014 collection of boldly-branded streetwear (though I'm still partial to their rose-covered balaclava or reversed subway T-shirts).

It's also meant to be a local answer to the Tokyo Reverse project, which sees French filmmaker Ludovic Zuili wandering through a backwards Tokyo (the clip went viral earlier this spring). NOZO's version sees dancer and choreographer Carlena Britch (who's worked with Pharell, Usher, and Justin Bieber) team up with NOZO's David Forteau (a dancer in his own right) for a slow, hazy roll through the city.

There's a gradual start to the video - unless you count a guy in an alley setting a pair of Air Yeezys on fire (because why not). Then our duo turns off Elm onto Yonge, and the rest of the world is, dreamily, moving backwards: cars roll in reverse, jaywalkers sprint backwards across the street, and a lot of pedestrians back-walk up the sidewalk while looking at Britch and Forteau like they're the crazy ones.

Want to see more pedestrians traveling upstream? Check out a sample of the original (nine-hour) Tokyo Reverse project below.

Photo via YouTube.


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