Jeanne Beker launches new clothing line at The Bay, includes jeggings

Jeanne Beker launches new clothing line at The Bay, includes jeggings

The interviewer becomes the interviewee: Jeanne Beker at yesterday's preview of Edit

Last week, we wrote about The Bay’s new budget-friendly women’s clothing line, Moon, an assortment of inexpensive basics (a turtleneck is $19) in mostly black and grey. Now, the grande dame of department stores is debuting a small collection of slightly more expensive women’s clothes backed by arguably the most powerful woman in Canadian fashion: Jeanne Beker. We say “backed” because Beker didn’t design the clothes (check them out in our slide show). Instead, she worked with a Montreal manufacturer, selecting styles and fabrics, and suggesting changes to create 25 pieces for women Beker says don’t have time to shop. The name of the line: Edit.

Like Moon, the clothes—stylish basics aimed at women in their 30s, 40s and 50s—are mostly in black and grey, with a few hits of white, camel and red. There’s the classic Beker black dress ($150), a boyfriend jacket with ruched sleeves ($150), a cape-like camel jacket ($195), wide-leg dress pants ($79) and, somewhat surprisingly, a pair of jeggings ($85).

It’s not Beker’s first foray into making clothes rather than reporting on them: she had a short-lived travel line at Eaton’s before it was bought out by Sears, and for a time lent her expertise to a shapewear line. When Bonnie Brooks took over The Bay, the two started discussing the possibility of working together. Turns out that Brooks and Beker are old friends—it was Brooks who introduced Beker as a columnist in Flare magazine while she was editor.

Launching at 65 stores in September, Edit will come out with new looks every month. Don’t look for the clothes at Toronto fashion week, though. Beker doesn’t think that every line is runway worthy. Amen.

See the slide show of Edit’s first collection >>