News

Justina McCaffrey - all pale skin, blond hair and unaffected grace - is wearing one of her ethereal creations as she floats along the hallway of a mansion on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

It's an evening of "couture and cocktails" to introduce the 43-year-old Ottawa fashion designer to the city. McCaffrey is relocating and launching a new venture into evening and debutante wear after two decades of creating wedding gowns for well-heeled brides across North America.

The designer, who has a compelling naivete and innocent charm, seems entirely at ease in this lavish setting, surrounded by silk rugs, porcelain vases, Warhols and Kandinskys. Indeed, she has rubbed shoulders with plenty of politicians, dignitaries and a Hollywood star or two as a designer whose gowns typically cost between $2,000 and $5,000.

But appearances aren't always what they seem. In fact, the story of how she came to be in this 73rd Street mansion is as intriguing as her creations can be.

Two years after she was characterized in a Globe and Mail article as the "hottest designer in the country," McCaffrey says that she is living in poverty. Back then, she was co-owner of Justina McCaffrey Haute Couture, a company that she says made millions. She had a home in Ottawa and one in Toronto, stores in both cities and the top-selling wedding dress at Kleinfeld, the famous New York bridal store.

Last February, however, her marriage ended, as did her involvement in her business. And so she did what many others might not dare to do: She came to New York, where she has been sustained by her faith (she is a devout Catholic) and her friendships.

Right now, she is surviving through the generosity of others, sleeping on a pull-out couch at her friend Bissy Seabright's Upper East Side apartment.

"Considering that I'm trying to live on $10 per day, I am quite happy," she says. "I have attended the opera, symphony and ballet more than when I was married."

Still, there's a disconnect between being newly impoverished and hanging around with bold-face Manhattan names like Anna Edelbrock-Fogg, Nevitt Nugent Jenkins, Muffie Bancroft Murray, Caroline Rowley, Avery Broadbent and Sarah Moulton, an up-and-coming opera singer.

It is these women who wanted to have this night in her honour, introducing her debutante and evening wear designs to New York in the process. The mansion - so vast it has an elevator - belongs to New Yorkers Kitty and Tom Kempner.

Tom Kempner's late mother, Nan, whose portrait by Andy Warhol hangs prominently in the stairway, came from a wealthy San Francisco family, married investment banker Tommy Kempner and went on to gain fame as a Manhattan socialite, philanthropist and fashionista.

Skinny and rich, she is credited with being the first woman to wear an Yves Saint Laurent pantsuit in public and is said to have inspired author Tom Wolfe's characterization of rich Upper East Side women as "social X-rays" in his classic eighties novel Bonfire of the Vanities.

Kitty Kempner and the 40 or so women sipping champagne at the McCaffrey launch exude old money. Understated and rail-thin, their clothes are well-tailored, their heels aren't too high and their faces are as scrubbed as a Ralph Lauren model's.

Conversations range from the schools their children attend to coming-out parties to renovations. McCaffrey and her friends glide through the throng wearing her designs, which have a vintage feel and are beautifully embellished with satin-covered buttons, Swarovski crystals and lace overlays.

Laura Peck, an Ottawa friend and communications consultant, is wearing the (Tory-) blue silk gown that McCaffrey designed for Laureen Harper, the Prime Minister's wife, to wear to a National Arts Centre gala.

A gorgeous black lace dress, one of several McCaffrey has created for Karen Kain, is being worn by 29-year-old socialite Fiona Benenson, another one of the evening's sponsors.

Several of the other young women are wearing her white debutante dresses. Another friend from Ottawa, Blair Dickerson, who most recently worked as the chief of staff to Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn, is wearing a classic white sheath dress, which looks right out of old Hollywood. McCaffrey, who gives all her designs female names, calls it the Blair Dress.

Her repertoire also includes the Audrey, the Sabrina and many others that McCaffrey has schlepped from trunk show to trunk show throughout the U.S.

But it was the Justina that started it all nearly 20 years ago. After designing her own wedding gown, a creation comprised of white silk, 250 handmade silk rosettes and yards of chicken wire supporting a wide skirt, relatives and friends were soon asking her to design their dresses. The business grew from there.

Now, her gowns cost about $4,000, while the price point for her evening and debutante couture will be between $5,000 and $10,000.

In addition to design, McCaffrey is very interested in politics; she's on the right side of the spectrum, which is reflected in her clientele.

As well as designing for Laureen Harper, she has created wedding gowns for the progeny of some high-profile Conservatives and Republicans, including Catherine Clark (Joe Clark's daughter) and Anne Cellucci (daughter of Paul Cellucci, the former U.S. ambassador to Canada).

So far, McCaffrey is optimistic about her Manhattan reinvention. She is keeping her fingers crossed that a new venture, in which she will consult and design for four ready-to-wear designers who are branching out into bridal wear, will work out.

She is also part of a proposed reality television series in which deserving couples will be given the wedding of their dreams. The show is being created by Canadian producer Barbara Barde and American Stu Goodman.

"I don't know where this is going to lead," she said earlier in the day. But what she does know, she said, is that she is blessed to have the friends she does and can now become the person "who I am supposed to be."

As the party winds down, there is a buzz around McCaffrey. One woman, from Hong Kong, is planning her daughter's coming-out party. She is thinking of flying McCaffrey to her home in China for an evening similar to this one.

Several days later, a New York social blogger writes fawningly about the affair at the "splendid" Kempner mansion, citing "girls so fetchingly fitted in their frocks that they downright stole the thunder of almost every Warhol in the house and reminded me that ladies don't need a wedding to wear a one-off work of art.

"I think Nan would happily and knowingly toast to that."