Time for a little history lesson on Canada’s first fashion designer. Born in Guelph, Ontario she soon left the True North Strong etc. and hopped over the pond to London. There she began sewing and selling dresses and by the time World War I hit she had already made her mark as a designer of tea gowns, lingerie and evening wear. Her collections made an impact in London, Paris, Chicago and New York, though she did experience some difficulty when she traveled to New York on business in 1912 when her mode of transportation hit an iceberg and sank (yeah, that one.) She survived and went on to refer to her fellow Canadians “as ghastly middle-class throng.”