The Brand is Female

Tracy Moore is the award-nominated host of Cityline, the longest running lifestyle program for women in Canada. She is the first black woman at the helm of a Canadian lifestyle TV show and has broken multiple glass ceilings throughout her career in media!Listen to our interview and hear about the obstacles she has faced and the risks she has taken (hint: they all paid off!) and learn about her impressive journey to unlocking her own potential.Tracy started her career as a reporter and anchor in the early 2000s, working in various Canadian TV networks and making her way up the ladder. While she initially was dreaming of becoming the new Diane Sawyer, Tracy moved on to obtain one of the most coveted spots in lifestyle TV with her headlining gig on Canadian show Cityline which is also broadcast in 70 million American homes daily.Tracy has garnered several awards over the years, among them: Brilliant Minded Woman Award for Community Service, Canadian Screen Award Best Host nominee, Gemini Best Host nominee and the BBPA Media Award. Tracy is also a proud mom of two.Our interview was recorded at Hoame, Toronto’s favourite meditation space.

Sabrina Maddeaux is a Toronto-based journalist specializing in fashion, lifestyle, beauty and more… she is the current Society editor and arts/style columnist for the National Post; she also contributes to a number of other publications in addition to being a style and beauty expert on the air for shows such as CityLine. Sabrina has carved her own path in the current, challenging media landscape and has managed to come out ahead!Listen to Sabrina discuss the challenges that come with being a woman in media, the state of publishing in 2019 including the pressures that come from brands and advertisers… and hear her explain why it matters to be able to share more women’s voices and women’s stories.

Jacqueline Leung is the Founder and CEO of Pressed News, a digital media company that makes the news easy to understand. With a daily email newsletter, online explainers, and social media community, Pressed brings its subscribers a recap of world issues straight to their mailbox every morning, always from a Canadian perspective - and minus the bias.Before launching Pressed, Jacqueline spent several years in marketing in different industries, including sports, food, and media. She came to realize she wasn’t getting access to Canadian news in a way that made sense for her, and she set out to fix the issue.Listen to her journey as she starting building a different kind of media company and discover some of her tips for dealing with adversity (including going to therapy once a week!), career challenges and get her advice on what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur.This episode was recorded at Hoame, Toronto’s favourite meditation and wellness studio.

This week, in keeping with our theme of women in the arts following Art Toronto held at the end of October, our guest is Maryam Keyhani.There are several words that can be used to describe Maryam — she is a painter, sculptor, designer, wife, mother, surrealist and hat enthusiast. She spends her time between Toronto and Berlin, and for anyone who follows her on social media, she appears to live in an absolutely enchanted world where her, her children and her friends partake in the joy of dressing up with Maryam’s creations which on an average day can include brocade, feathers, ruffles, embroidery, bows, lace, silk, outrageously puffy sleeves, balloon skirts and dresses that look like they belong to another era… and of course, the fabulous, extravagant hats which have become her signature.These days, we can safely refer to Maryam as a hat maker. She has earned attention from media in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, including recent praise for her escapades in millinery in Vogue.Designer, journalist and past TBIF podcast guest Mosha Lundstrom recently used the following words to describe her own experience wearing one of Maryam’s creations:“I can’t even describe how transformative your hats are to wear. Crowds part, people treat you like you are way more important than you often feel, and you, in turn, carry yourself totally differently. And so a new hat habit is formed.”Listen to our host Eva Hartling’s conversation with Maryam for a glimpse inside the artists’s wonderful, imaginary world and to hear the story of what has inspired her to start making hats, thus allowing anyone who wishes to join in to rediscover the importance of play, as an escape and a respite from the harsh realities of life.

Art Toronto, Canada’s international contemporary and modern art fair, is being held this weekend, and to highlight this important event we sat down with a few women artists for a special showcase.The art industry continues to be marked by inequality: as of the first half of 2018, there were only 5 women on Artnet’s list of the 100 best-selling artists at auction. The number of women on this list has fluctuated between just 2 and 6 since 2013. Overall, 96.1% of artworks sold at auction are by male artists.The top three museums in the world — the British Museum, the Louvre, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art —have never had female directors.Women are still behind men in directors positions in at museums with budgets over $15M, holding 30% of art museum director positions and earning 75¢ for every dollar earned by male directors.Our first guest part of our Art Toronto showcase is Janet Werner, a Winnipeg-born, Montreal-based painter. Janet’s work is presented at Art Toronto and she has a solo show opening at the start of November at the Musee d’art contemporain de Montreal.Janet studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and went on to attend Yale University where she received her Masters of Fine Arts. She taught painting and drawing at the University of Saskatchewan and started teaching at Concordia University when she moved to Montreal in 1999.Janet is known for her impressive, large scale fictional portraits of women. She has been focusing on the genre since 1997 — through her work, she explores themes of subjectivity and desire by producing composites of found images, mostly gathered from fashion magazines.Listen to Janet discuss her journey, her sources of inspiration as well as the challenges she’s faced as a Canadian visual artist with our podcast host Eva Hartling!

Jeanne Beker is a Canadian journalist, media personality, and fashion entrepreneur. But more than all of this, she is an icon and a trailblazer, who has deeply influenced Canadian broadcasting, and the Canadian fashion industry overall.Jeanne started her career as an actress, but moved into radio and then TV. She became host of Fashion Television (FT), which aired for 27 years and had viewers in more than 130 countries. Jeanne has been editor-in-chief of two magazines and she has published five books, including her 2010 autobiography, Finding Myself in Fashion. Jeanne has been a contributing editor of The Toronto Star, The Kit, and a columnist for Metro, as well as a style columnist for The Globe and Mail and Post City magazine, in addition to writing for several lifestyle publications. She has launched her own clothing line, Edit by Jeanne Beker, and was named Style Editor of The Shopping Channel. Her many awards include her appointment to the Order of Canada in 2014 for her support of the Canadian fashion industry and a Canadian Screen Achievement Award for the role she played in changing the way Canadians watch television.Throughout her life, Jeanne carved her own path, opened doors and broke through glass ceilings, paving the way for women in media, publishing and fashion after her… listen to her conversation with Eva Hartling and discover her inspiring journey.

Ruby Brown is the founder of Montreal-based Ruby Brown Perfume House.Ruby fell in love with perfume when she was working as a model in Paris and visited the town of Grasse. After studying the art of perfumery and coming back home to take entrepreneurship classes, she decided to launch her own company in 2012, first by offering custom perfume workshops, and eventually creating her own branded products.Ruby has since partnered with Simons, Tristan and other large retail brands for product collaborations which include scented candles, custom-made perfumes and more. The future definitely looks and smells rosy… listen to Ruby’s conversation with Eva Hartling where she shares her journey to building Canada’s only luxury perfume house.

Kimberley Newport-Mimran is a fashion legend in Canada. She is President and Design Director of Pink Tartan, the womenswear brand that she founded in 2002 and which has since grown into an international brand known for understated luxury and sophisticated sportswear. At Toronto Fashion Week this year Kim presented a brand new collection of evening wear, or “Canadian couture” as she called it, under the label Kim Newport, which was received with great acclaim.The Brand is Female’s Eva Hartling discussed Kim’s earlier years building a career in fashion (including a stint at now defunct Caban aka the greatest home store in Canadian history!), where her inspiration comes from, the secret to keeping a fashion line alive and successful for 17 years, the obstacles she faced along the way and how she stays grounded… which translates into lots of meals at home with husband Joe Mimran and her children.

Fashion Week recently wrapped up in Toronto, and we recorded a special episode of the Brand is Female at an event held by Canadian outerwear brand Sentaler in honour of their partnership with SickKids, The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.The Brand is Female’s Eva Hartling hosted a panel with the brand’s founder, Bojana Sentaler, Molly Fitzpatrick, chair of the Scrubs event held every year for Sick Kids, and Donna Bishop, host of FashionTalks podcast and fashion reporter for CBC.Bojana, Molly, Donna and Eva discussed corporate responsibility and the best way of aligning a brand’s fundraising efforts with its DNA, what personal and brand philanthropy should be about, they talked about what women should do more of… and the always hot topic of finding balance (hint: Donna Bishop called it “the worst word to have ever been put on women”).Learn more about Bojana Sentaler’s commitment to sustainability and social responsibility as the brand gets ready to celebrate its 10th anniversary!

This is Fashion Week season; Toronto Fashion Week wrapped up this week and New York is in full swing. To celebrate the many talented women in the field of fashion and design, we’re kicking off season 2 with an interview featuring Katie Kolondiski, founder and creative director of Silk Laundry, a wonderful line of silk slip dresses, camisoles, blouses and more.Silk Laundry began as a side project five years ago with just four pieces, which Katie launched when she was living in Australia. Within the first year, the brand was carried in 60 stores. Today, the brand counts three stores (two are in Australia) and a staff of 17. Katie opened a Silk Laundry shop in Montreal after deciding to move back to Canada to be closer to her family and now works out of an office space above the shop. The brand has received accolades from the fashion community, and stars including Chrissy Teigen have been flocking to the brand’s popular slips.