Women Of The Year: 33 Canadians Who Rocked 2017

For bringing fashion manufacturing back to Canada: For five years, the Director of the Fashion Exchange at Toronto’s George Brown College advocated for the creation of a space that could serve as both a technical workshop for design students and a working manufacturing facility. The space opened in 2016, offering the only practical fashion-production classes in the country while also offering workshop spaces to community members in Regent Park. And this year, McNeil-Morin’s vision finally came to fruition: The Fashion Exchange signed 30 clients, including local designers Heather Campbell and Garrison Bespoke, and hired nine staff (including two from their community outreach program). —S.A.