My favourite dress isn’t a dress, but it is very much a favourite. I bought it before I met Graham while on assignment in New York. It cost me US$100, a great deal by my standards, but I loved it then and I love it still.

The assignment I covered was an exhibition by Canadian rainwear designers in the Big Apple. They were hoping to crack the U.S. market and some branch or other of the Canadian government helped finance the show. It was, of course in the garment district, a story all by itself, but I digress.

The item I bought is technically rainwear, but it is much more than that. It is a black velvet, hooded cloak. It’s perfect over evening wear, it was perfectly elegant when I was pregnant, and it still is perfect. I wear it as my dress coat, anytime I need a dress coat, still. My kids have both borrowed it, and the hem has gone (temporarily) up or down to suit their needs. It has been to press gallery dinners, to Government House, to weddings, to royal occasions, and, from time to time, to Halloween outings. It is indestructible, elegant, and I love how it looks and feels. The best US$100 that I have ever spent.

Gail Scott, Toronto, Ontario

As I contemplated my favourite dress, I was taken back to Barsuda Drive where we both lived in the late 60s. You were making a green velvet gown which was amazingly beautiful. I learned a lot about sewing with velvet during those weeks and have never forgotten “the nap lesson” – all in the same direction! I made green velvet dresses for my two granddaughters two years ago and I thought of you.

The two dresses I remember as favourites are also from the 60s, before I met my husband Howie, for two student nurse formals at Casa Loma. The first was red taffeta, strapless with sparkles across the bodice, and long, as was the style. The skirt was full but not overdone. I felt wonderful.

The second one was short, white, and sleeveless, with a beaded top and a filmy, swishy skirt of organza. My Mom bought it for me at Liptons because she knew I liked it. It was probably more than she wanted to spend but she also realized how very important it was to me. It is still around, now in the girls’ dress-up box. Julianna claims it belonged to a princess! I guess that’s what it was all about!

Karen Goodfellow, Cobourg, Ontario

When I first thought about it, my response was that I never had a favourite dress. Then, for some reason, a date with Hutch popped into my memory. Before we were married, we went to a dance at Cedarbrae Golf and Country Club with a group of friends, a common occurrence for us in those days. We would have been about eighteen.

I had spotted a dress in the window of a shop at Queen Street East and Wheeler Avenue. So Mum and I made the trek from our home in Scarborough to investigate further. The dress was winter white, with a bodice made of lacy wool. The mid-length skirt was very full, with a fitted waist made of taffeta organza. 

It fit perfectly. Mum said if I really wanted it she would buy it for me. So she did. I was to buy the accessories. I spotted a pair of off-white shoes with the same lacy pattern. They complemented the dress to a tee. The outfit was topped off with a rhinestone tiara, which was very fashionable at the time. 

When I looked in the mirror, I felt like a princess. And I saw a princess looking back. At the dance on Saturday evening I was fortunate enough to be crowned Queen. So, looking back all these years later, it turned out that it was a very memorable dress indeed!

Elaine Hutchison, Toronto, Ontario

click to enlarge

Maggie Reeves made my favourite dress for me and it was the first dress that Frank gave me! It was a total surprise but in 1966 as a young banker he had just been made the manager of the CIBC branch in the Colonnade on Bloor Street at Avenue Road.

Maggie was a struggling young artist/designer – I think her store was at the east end of Cumberland Street – and he managed to help her. She was ever so grateful that someone had confidence in her that she insisted on making a dress for me, his wife!

I actually kept it as it was until we came back from Washington in 1993 when I, regretfully, had it made into a two-piece but I will never forget how I good I felt in it. I felt like a queen.

Mary Jean Potter, Toronto, Ont.

Shirley on June 27, 1970

I’ve always loved my wedding dress – cream lace designed in 1970 by Rudolphe in Yorkville. When I finally went to pick up the finished creation, the veil was missing. The girls in the shop said, “Veil? What veil? You didn’t order a veil.”

I was so upset. Rudolphe came out of his office and said a bride shouldn’t be crying so soon before her wedding. He proceeded to design the most beautiful veil for me on the spot – using cut-outs of the same lace material sewn with seed pearls for my hair.

My wedding dress – symbol of love, hope, promise, tradition and family – evokes cherished memories of such an exciting time in my life. It was a dream of a day, surrounded by all of our loving family and friends, so supportive and full of good wishes holding the promise of a bright, family future.

The love has come full circle now. A piece of my dress was sewn to a piece of my mother-in-law’s dress (something old), embroidered in “something blue” with family names we’ve shared, was fastened inside my daughter Deena’s dress on her wedding day, carrying forward all the love our hearts could hold.

I never bought a dress in a shop until I was twenty-one years old. My Aunt Decima had a dress-making business in our small village on a mountainside in Wales, and she made all my family’s clothes.

My earliest memories are of “clothes coupons” since everything during and for quite a while after World War II was rationed in the U.K. When we had enough money and coupons we would go to the shops – the drapers of cloth, the haberdashers for buttons, buckles, etc., but Deci often covered her own buckles and buttons. We never bought patterns; Deci made her own,

As a child in Wales, the week was traditionally tasked – Sunday was for Chapel, Monday was for laundry, Tuesday and Wednesday for mending and ironing, Thursday and Friday for house cleaning and Saturday was for baking.

My mother, an indifferent housekeeper but a wonderful cook, happily spent her Saturdays baking Victoria Sponges, pies, fruit cakes and my favourite, Maid of Honour Cakes. I was happy to be exiled to my grandparents’ big house up the street. My grandfather was in his wonderful garden where apples, berries, vegetables and flowers abounded. My grandmother was in her kitchens supervising (bossing) my Aunts Gwyneth and Hannah about her own household baking.

I was sent to the Dressmaking Rooms where my Aunt Decima and her apprentices worked on Saturday mornings. I was seated at an old treadle sewing machine, without a needle (mother was a worrier), and I treadled away happily on an old piece of cloth. I learned to sew and also heard a lot of gossip I probably shouldn’t have.

My Aunt Decima has, over the years, made me the most superb clothes. From this cornucopia of fashion comes to mind:

• when I was six years old, a royal blue velvet dress with white silk smocking;

• when I was in school, school uniforms of brown wool gabardine pinafores and cream silk blouses that just met the school dress code but were so much more flattering than those bought in stores;

• when I went to university, long dresses of burgundy velvet and skirts and blouses of black and gold silk to “wow” them at the requisite formal functions of those “long ago” university days.

But the dress I remember as my most favourite was when I was nineteen. It was of emerald green wool, boat-necked, long-sleeved, with a flared skirt. I wore a gold pin at the neckline. I’ll never forget telling Deci what I wanted done with this piece of wondrous green wool – how I wanted it to flow and how I wanted my newly discovered figure to show, but subtly.

She read the dreams in my eyes, she lived them with me, and she made me a dress fit for a princess.

My Aunt Decima never traveled much beyond the Welsh village where she was born, but she is a true fashonista. She is now 89 years old, almost blind and very deaf. She is one of my best friends. We talk about fashion, what’s in, what’s out, and have lots of laughs. What’s fashion – if it’s not fun?

Menna Weese, Toronto, Ont.

When I was almost two years old, I went with my parents to a family gathering. As I visited the same farm many times in the following years, I can imagine that on that day the snarling mongrel dogs rushed down the long lane to greet us and snapped at the tires all the way up to the house. The ferocious chickens would have been loose and stabbing the ground all around my feet. The windmill would have been creaking and groaning. My aunt would have offered the thick, dry, currant-stuffed cookies she was famous for. (No thank you.)

That day I would have played with two slightly older cousins. One would always have been in motion, tearing around at an alarming rate. The other would have been shyly glued to her father’s pant leg. Eventually, we were all gathered up for a photo at the side of the house. I was wearing “the dress.”

This particular dress is still in my possession. It hangs on a child-sized plastic hanger, draped over the framed photo of that warm Fall day. I was photographed in this dress many times and a studio portrait of me in this dress was on my grandparents’ piano for many years.

The dress looks to be about a size 2 and the label reads NANETTE Toddler. It was purchased in New York state by an aunt. It has short puffy sleeves and the obligatory bow tied at the back waist. It was made of white cotton batiste with a sprinkling of pale coral flowers and soft lime-coloured leaves. The bodice has columns of fabric alternating with plain batiste that has been edged with heirloom stitching. The neckline is bordered with ruffled batiste and edged with a fine lacy stitch.

When I pressed the dress before taking the attached photo, I’m sure I could smell the Ivory Snow my mother would have laundered it in.

Leanne Kay, Guelph, Ontario