I founded SteMargScot in 2022 to counteract the complacency around polyester puffer coats. Wool is a natural, renewable, and low impact fibre that has kept us warm and dry for centuries. I found that in a race for easy and cheaper, it has been forgotten that wool is the fabric of Canada. My mission is to debunk the myth that a wool coat is not warm enough for Canadian winters, while injecting colour & style back into our winter wardrobe.

My journey to where I am has not been straightforward. In addition to coming an entrepreneur, I am also a published author, award-winning researcher in drug discovery, and a science educator with over a decade of experience teaching climate science, biology and chemistry. In a nutshell, I am a Caribbean-born, colour-fanatic, winter-intolerant, science nerd.

My entrepreneurial journey in the world of wool outerwear began in 2019. I remember having a reusable water bottle, cloth grocery bags, wearing my Vejas and sporting an ankle-length polyester puffer. Unbeknownst to me, I was a walking billboard for fashion’s addiction to fossil fuel-derived synthetics.

When I learned that polyester is the most widely produced fibre in the world with no signs of slowing, I could no longer naively follow trends over my values. The outerwear market is currently dominated by synthetics and the puffy proof was in my closet. This was the AH-HA moment that compelled me to create the change I wanted to see in the world. More importantly, this is why I believe the SteMargScot (seynt-margh-skot) story (i.e., wool’s comeback story) should be told now.

SteMargScot is a new made-in-Canada company challenging two things; the sea of synthetics monopolizing outerwear, and the dark coat uniform. Canadians are inextricably attached to their winter coats. My mission is to revive high quality, high fashion woollen coats that do good, feel good, and last, while harnessing colour, to transport all-genders out of the darkest days of the year.

Building a social media audience was crucial for my fashion startup. Our customers are millennials and GenZs that turn to Instagram for ideas and inspiration. Since SteMargScot values colour and joy, it was very important to the brand ethos that this message be conveyed in all messaging.

The challenge was that I had zero experience with social media as I did not have any active accounts prior to starting my company. The first thing was to establish our brand identity and guidelines for how we would like to communicate. For example, all communication should revolve around optimism, fashion, sustainability and/or colour. The goal for our visuals is inspiring and surreal. Our goal is for our community to leave us feeling joyful.

We established that our brand voice would be a mix of Vivienne Westwood and Mindy Kaling, cheeky, bold and fun. I think because our branding is very clear and differentiated from others, customers quickly know if the like us and want to be part of our “colour collective” club. From there, we post around 3 times weekly use boosted posts to let more people know we exist. We also experiment with Facebook Ads, which also seem to work well. We have a very small monthly marketing/ad budget that we use to help build our online community. We also rely on many in person events to further cast our net of awareness. Once a year, we give away 1 coat to one of our followers and this also helps to boost our audience.

Yes, we make our products in Toronto. Fashion production in Canada has dwindled over the past 30 years, so it is not easy for someone entirely new to the industry to find manufacturing partners. The industry is very hush-hush and people are reluctant to share their production partners with others. So that meant research, research, research.

At the beginning, I reached out to FX, which is a fashion school associated with George Brown College. They were turn-key in the sense that they helped to develop the product from idea to final garment. Since they were associated with a college and not-for-profit, I felt comfortable working with them. After a season of production, I was able to find other production partners to grow with (i.e., more robust production). These partners work with other well established Canadian brands, but it was only through word of mouth that I could meet with them as most of these facilities do not have SEO or websites that are searchable under Google. The main take away is to talk to as many people as you can in the industry to find the right partners. It takes time and I was really grateful to have access to FX to get the ball rolling.