| Though
in
her twenties, Calgary native Jennifer Bawden has
accomplished what most other fashion designers can only
dream of. One of her creations, a green velvet
slip cocktail dress, has made the November cover of
Cosmopolitan magazine.
The
accomplishment means that Bawden, the daughter of former
Calgary South MP Peter Bawden, can now be taken
seriously in New York’s brutally competitive
fashion-design market.
“I’m
pretty happy about it,” she says. “It’s
difficult for anyone my age to get a a cover without
paying a public relations agency a lot of money to
represent you.”
A Cosmo
fashion editor says Bawden beat out many well-known
designers for the slot. The magazine doesn’t pay
for its cover fashions; its editors rightly think the
coast-to-coast exposure is payment enough.
Bawden,
an alumnus of Branksome Hall in Toronto and the
University of Western Ontario, had toiled in relative
obscurity since her arrival in New York. Her first
coup occurred last fall when her line of formal evening
dresses—pricey affairs that start at US $900—was
featured in the Fifth Avenue windows of Bergdorf Goodman
fashion store.
Her next
goal: Drumming up licensing agreements to sell her
dresses in Europe and launching a line of ski wear. |
