"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 was gathered around, and I was hiding 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 it was 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!
Earlier that year, fresh out of university, 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 to myself 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 just 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 woman from a small, isolated Canadian town with a boring background who was painfully shy. That was definitely not going to fly in the fashion world. So I pretended I was someone else and acted like I was 10 feet tall. And it miraculously seemed to work (!!).
Every remotely interesting clothing shop I came across I seized. 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 the fashion business and international apparel trade shows. Particularly the shows at the Javitz Center in New York City. Those shows changed my life.
Profile pic of me up top was taken that year for some music/fashion mag in Los Angeles. I don’t remember the name, but I do remember being slightly concerned during prep as the stylist was coming at me with that tin foil thing as I sat trapped in the hair and makeup chair! Got to love the 90s."
