“I showed up to the first day of seventh grade wearing turquoise Reebok wrestling boots—they were very odd—and then everyone started wearing wrestling boots. I’ve always had an intuitive sense of style. My great-grandmother and grandmother were both into fashion, so I knew early on that I wanted to be part of that world.
My first job was with a wedding planner in eleventh grade. That was my first taste of seeing how events—these moments that were so emotional and joyous for people—came together. Then in university, armed with a big navy BlackBerry, I organized a charity fashion show to raise money for The Canadian Cancer Society. I felt like I was getting my chops, really creating and executing the production.
At 19, I interned at W magazine for fashion director Alex White. It was a true pillar in my career, teaching me how to bring my fashion obsession to life through brands, stories, styling, and photography. I’d go to all of Alex’s shoots and ad campaigns—it was insane. On my second day, I was tasked with sending clothing to George Clooney’s hotel, and then I watched Michael Thompson shoot him along with Renée Zellweger. Another time I saw Oribe Canales work his magic on Keira Knightley and James McAvoy for a cover shoot. One day, when we were in a trailer shooting a Celine ad campaign, Alex was like, ‘Erin, right?’—she asked me if that was my name every time—‘Can you fax this to Karl?’ I said ‘Karl, who?’ Of course she was talking about Karl Lagerfeld, but I didn’t have this fax number—or even have a fax machine. She was like, ‘Carry on.’
My internship sometimes felt like The Devil Wears Prada—my subway stop was Andy’s stop, I worked across from Smith & Wollensky, and I fetched my boss endless drinks and meals. I still remember my first morning commute when a girl with a cool bob, an ombré Miu Miu bag, and a green Army jacket caught my eye. I thought, She’s so cool, I want to be her. I saw her get off of my subway stop, then I saw her go into my building, and then I saw her go up to my floor. A new friend whispered that it was Emily Weiss, who was working at W the time. She later styled the lookbooks for my namesake clothing line. We shot some incredible girls like Theodora Richards, Vanessa Traina, Annabelle Dexter-Jones, and Harley Viera-Newton.
That line started as tops I made from vintage scarves and sold to a few Toronto stores like Holt Renfrew. Mischa Barton wore one at the height of The O.C., and a photo landed on Perez Hilton—it was surreal. I pivoted to eco-friendly T-shirts, cardigans, and dresses with hand-sewn chain embellishments. What’s so cool about being young is the fearlessness and the naivete, that I’ve-got-nothing-to-lose vibe, so when I finished my internship and couldn’t get a visa to stay in America—I’m from Toronto—I pitched the brand to a buyer at Barneys. They said no before changing their mind, and I sold my first collection on the eighth floor of the co-op. I’ll never forget being on a highway when the order came through—I slept so well that night knowing I was an indie designer selling at Barneys. From there, Intermix took an interest in us and purchased a ton of inventory. That was exhilarating but also scary. There was the initial excitement, but then it was like, ‘How do I execute this? And what if there’s returns, and chargebacks?’ One time I got a bill from Saks Fifth Avenue for $10,000 in duties, and I was like, ‘What are duties?’ I don’t have an MBA, so there was so much to be learned from experience. But I ended up selling to 80 stores worldwide, including Harvey Nichols, Lane Crawford, and Nordstrom.
When 2010 rolled around, I was bored of making clothes and wanted to build a website. Inspired by The Social Network and Tommy Ton’s street style coverage, Stephanie Mark, Jake Rosenberg, and I launched Coveteur. Our twist was to go inside people’s homes and show how they got dressed—not just the finished look—and to highlight makeup artists, stylists, and designers. This was all pre-Instagram, so there was this voyeurism aspect of people wanting to see inside people’s homes.
We started out by shooting six of our core Coveteurs—including Joanna Hillman, Eugene Tong, and John Gerhardt—as we called them. It was weird in the beginning. People would be like, ‘What are you doing rummaging through my shit?’ What we had realized was that we could create art by placing a pair of Manolo Blahniks on a bookshelf with little trinkets around them and shooting them in this saturated way that brought a new vibe to the still life. And for me, it was also about understanding the craftsmanship of the products and also how people acquired them—I’m so emo and I love nostalgia. What’s so cool is that at the end of the shoots, people would be like, ‘Why don’t you hang out and we’ll smoke a joint and get to know each other?’
Some of my favorites: Gucci Westman and her husband have the best aesthetic and are so kind and are genuinely creative humans. Kelly Wearstler’s home blew my mind. She’s the goat. Shooting Tommy Hilfiger’s home was insane because he had original art from Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol. He had the door to Keith Haring’s apartment and an original VIP Ticket to Studio 54. June Ambrose had an endless amount of hats and sunglasses. We even got to Coveteur Barbie and shoot with Jonathan Anderson in his home pre-Loewe.
I left Coveteur in 2014. It was just time for me to move on. When I interviewed Karl Lagerfeld after one of his shows in Paris, I asked him about the inspiration for his collection. He said, ‘No, no, no, no, we don’t talk about the show. We only talk about the future. You tell me. What’s cool? What’s new? What are the kids listening to?’ I think about that each day. He did not want to think about the past. I’m nostalgic, but as an entrepreneur I never want to get stuck in the past.
Next came Métier Creative, my creative agency—a bold move given that I had never worked at an agency before. I had loved working behind the scenes with brands and we had such incredible advertisers that I wanted to help tell their stories. I called up some of our old advertisers, like Dior, to ask what they needed and how I could help. The name is inspired by the handcrafted nature of couture shows because like the clothing, our content and approach is bespoke. Jen Atkin sent an email out saying something like, ‘Hey, I’m starting a brand called Ouai. Does anyone know a social media manager?’ I replied asking if she would consider hiring an agency. For five years we helped build Ouai, creating content, ideating events, even working with Virgil Abloh on custom pill cases for the brand’s supplements. From there we partnered with founders like Katherine Power, Laney Crowell, and Katie Sturino, and brands including La Mer, Oribe, Victoria Beckham Beauty—even Ms. Lauryn Hill, creating content for her 20th-anniversary tour.
Métier really allowed me to get into beauty. Then in 2020, just as the pandemic hit, my grandmother died—she was always preaching the importance of caring for myself, to moisturize and hydrate—and around the same time, I had started to wonder what was next for me. What came to mind was this question of what I saw missing in the beauty landscape. I felt that bodycare was either really ‘clean’ and effective but the smells weren’t that great—or the products were heavily fragranced, which would give me a rash. I wanted to fuse those two worlds together. Also, during my time at Coveteur, I saw so many fancy French candles and my eyes were open to that world, but they gave me a headache. I wanted to create candles that had less paraffin.
I named Sidia after my grandmother, honoring her legacy while building a modern heritage brand. We use her heirlooms in our shoots. Honestly, the main impetus was to create a hand care system, a hand exfoliant with a plant-based retinol, and a very lightweight, soothing and hydrating serum. I’d always throw away the hand creams I tried because they were too greasy and gross, and I knew a lot of people shared this sensory issue. The serum quickly became our hero product—so popular I sometimes can’t even keep one for myself—and it’s now in three scents and an Allure Best of Beauty winner. The body exfoliant is an unsung hero. It lights up the shower with our Wired scent—and it looks so sexy in the bathroom. We thought the solid perfume would be a fun accoutrement, but it exceeded all of our goals. That success tells me fragrance is where I need to go deeper—more scent-driven products, more collaborations with perfumers. It’s the part of the business I’m most excited about right now.”
—as told to Daise Bedolla
Photographed by Erin Leydon