Director of Fundraising for the internationally renowned and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Médecins sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders, Rebecca Davies leads the fundraising team for the Canadian arm of the organization and raises over $31 million annually (Canadian dollars). She has previously fundraised for Toronto General & Western Hospital Foundation, Women’s College Hospital Foundation, and the University of Toronto. She writes actively in the field of fundraising. Find her incredible insights here.

“In a war-zone, an MSF t-shirt can mean the difference between life and death.” Rebecca Davies,   Director of Fundraising, Doctors without Borders (MSF)

When Rebecca Davies walks into her office

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Former Supermodel Monika Schnarre was at 14, the youngest winner of the Ford Modelling Agency’s “Supermodel of the World” Competition. Not only has she graced the covers of Vogue, Elle & Flare Magazine among many, but has acted in block-buster films like “Total Recall,” and made appearances on long-running TV hits series: “Beverly Hills 90210” & “The Bold and the Beautiful”.

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Rebecca Eckler is the author of: “Up: Confessions of a Modern-Mother-to-be”, “Wiped! Life with a Pint-size Dictator”, “Toddlers Gone Wild”, “Mischievous Mom at the Art Gallery” and her most recent book: “How to Raise a Boyfriend.”

We had the pleasure of asking Rebecca about her own journey as a mom and fashion-lover. As usual, she doesn’t hold back, and we love it! Thanks Rebecca!

How do you think women’s fashion choices change during pregnancy? How does the change in the way they see themselves affect these choices? (Do they still want to dress sexily? etc)

I dressed sexily, well, as sexily as possible. I would wear, for example, a purple bra showing under a dress or tank top with matching shoes. Of course fashion, or at least the clothes change. You get bigger!

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“Women talk about influential brands all the time as a recommendation or referral to someone else…the stats are that a woman in an average week will mention a brand 170 times.” 

—Sean Moffitt, Co-Author of Wikibrands (www.wiki-brands.com),

 In Sean Moffitt’s understanding of the new marketing landscape, the future of branding has a definite direction: “where a brand used to be something you loved or trusted, now a brand is something you want to participate in.”

Moffitt believes that companies need to facilitate an online and social networking environment where everyone feels they have a say in the brands they care about. And so far, notes Moffitt, women speak the loudest: “Women and brand creation are a natural fit. They communicate  more intimately, widely and with more of their friends. They understand the medium of social networking natively.”

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An Image-Poet Amongst Photographers: The Moods of Meagan Cignoli

“I don’t fall in love with people, I fall in love with clothing.”—Meagan Cignoli (Award-winning Fashion and Portrait Photographer)

A tanned girl in a beautiful vibrant dress reminiscent of Joseph’s coat of many colours appears simultaneously to sink and rise in waters so cool you can almost taste them off the page, and the background a lush jungle appearing to be held back (though barely!) from devouring the girl and picture itself. This is the work of Meagan Cignoli. Her images are seemingly simple but heavy with concept and visual luxury. She makes you think in story, she makes you think in poetry.

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“Self-perception is a really powerful thing…being on camera challenges that perception.”

 — Sadia Zaman 

“Fashion wasn’t a factor in the way I saw myself,” says Sadia Zaman, recently appointed Director at CBC News, of her start in journalism at the age of 19. What would be a prolific and award-winning career had its beginning at a small-town newspaper in Saskatchewan; a town close to the even  smaller town where Zaman’s family had immigrated only eight years earlier. Defining herself by her commitment to her work, she had little time or money to invest in her appearance. As a student journalist, it wasn’t apparent to Zaman that it was even necessary for fashion and journalism to intersect in her career. It wasn’t until she appeared on camera as a reporter several years later at CKTV in Regina that her perception changed: “The way we appear to others does matter,” she observed, “People judge on what they see.”

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“When they cast a diva, they are looking for a woman who men want to die for.”

—-Othalie Graham

As a rising star of the international opera scene and the best known Black Canadian dramatic opera soprano, Othalie Graham already has the kind of career that most aspiring singers would kill for. Touted for her rendition of Turandot, her Wagnerian repertoire is as impressive in its vocal difficulty as it is physically demanding. Graham notes that her career took off when she took off almost half the weight on her body, a loss of almost 140 pounds: it wasn’t until then that she was offered a role in Tosca. Graham says that the idea that a thinner diva is more resilient is misleading: “I could do those roles at any weight, but

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