It was originally established in 2001 by CHUM Limited as a brand extension of the Citytv series FashionTelevision, airing programming related to fashion, modelling, photography, art, architecture and design.

On November 24, 2000, CHUM Limited was granted approval by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to launch Fashion Television: The Channel, described as "a national English-language specialty television service dedicated to fashion, beauty, style, art, architecture, photography and design.

[2] In July 2006, Bell Globemedia (later called CTVglobemedia) announced that it would purchase CHUM for an estimated $1.7 billion CAD.

Along with BookTelevision, the channel later abandoned its original format and began to primarily air reruns of library programming from other Bell Media networks with little relevance to fashion.

In January 2021, the CRTC approved a request by Bell to revoke Fashion Television and BookTelevision's licenses, stating that it planned to shut both channels down on February 21.