this fall. But she became a household name through Fashion Television , which originated with Citytv Toronto in 1985, and aired in more than 100 countries. The show morphed into its own specialty channel until Bell Media pulled the plug on the franchise in 2012. But for 27 seasons, she flew around the world with camera crews to cover the fashion business: attending the runways of Paris and Milan to nab exclusive, behind-the-scenes interviews with top designers including Karl Lagerfeld and Valentino and supermodels like Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford. Beker also curated and launched her own fashion lines, edited fashion magazines, men- tored up-and-coming Canadian designers and wrote a handful of books. Designers created special outfits for her. But she also credits her late mother’s prized turquoise-coloured Brother sew- ing machine for launching her on the road to international fame. It showed up at the family home in 1959, as a gift from her fath- er when they moved into Toronto’s Bathurst Manor neighbourhood. From then on Bronia made all the family’s clothes. Inspired by designs from Vogue and Harp- er’s Bazaar magazines, Beker’s mother would head down to Spadina Avenue to pick up fab- ric at a store called Stitsky’s—which was per- fectly fine for the mod styles dreamed up by Jeanne and her sister Marilyn. These sartorial skills also came in handy for her first TV news job as an entertainment re- porter in St. John’s, Newfoundland. “I haven’t picked up a needle and thread like that in years,” she laughs. But it wasn’t only her mother’s fashion sense that propelled Beker into the world of designer samples and look books. It was advice drilled into her by her father. After the couple settled into their new Canadian home, Joseph Beker ran a slipper factory in Toronto. “This has become a whole other arena for me, a whole other way of lending my voice to something that could really help save lives, and certainly grow awareness.”
TOP: Peak shoulder pads at FT: June 30, 1989; BOTTOM: Jeanne behind the runway: Sept. 14, 1994
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