BACKSTORY

"Los Angeles 1996, my first show. I was 25 or 26. Not sure which I was more thrilled about, showing my first collection on the runway or meeting my fashion anti-hero, Patricia Field (before she was costume designer on Sex In The City, back then, she was to me 100% street with the fiercest store in the world!).

 

During rehearsals, everyone in the show gathered around, and I hid a bit behind. The organizers called out my name to introduce me, and the crowd turned as I walked to the front. Then, as if in slow motion, Patricia Field and her partner pivoted to see who I was and smiled—at ME!!! It was definitely a Wayne’s World, I’m-not-worthy moment!! I could have easily collapsed into her arms had I not pretended to hold it together and glide by with a nod and a smile!

 

Fresh out of university earlier that year, I gathered my collection, squeezed it in an oversized suitcase along with some lookbook shots, and took a Greyhound bus or some other unglamorous mode of transport from Toronto and headed to New York City. I was alone; I knew no one, I had no contacts, I had no business mentors, and I had no money. All I knew was that it wasn’t 25-year-old me pulling that enormous, leaded suitcase over the cobblestone streets of SoHo; it was eight-year-old me, determined to realize my childhood dream.

 

I remember thinking as I marched down those crowded streets, I’m doing this—I’M DOING THIS! EVERYONE, OUT OF MY WAY!!  I think I more or less walked into stores and just winged it. Sometimes, you have to wing it when you don’t have a clue what you’re doing.

 

The one thing I did know was that I had to forget I was a petite, 5’1, biracial young woman from a small, isolated Canadian town with a dull background who was painfully shy. That was definitely not going to fly in the fashion world. So I acted like I was someone else and spoke like I was ten feet tall. And it miraculously seemed to work!

 

Every remotely interesting clothing shop I came across, I approached. And if the buyer wasn’t around, I waited or returned and wrote orders. It was then that I threw myself straight into the fire and started learning hands-on about the fashion business and global apparel trade shows. Particularly the shows at the Javitz Center in New York City. Those international shows changed my life.

 

A profile pic of me up top was taken that year for a music/fashion magazine in Los Angeles. I don’t remember the name, but I do remember being slightly concerned during prep as the stylist approached my hair with a handful of tin foil as I sat trapped in the hair and makeup chair! Got to love the 90s."