There are different ways to raise capital that were not available when I was growing my business.

There are different ways to raise capital that were not available when I was growing my business.

The hardest thing, particularly in the fashion industry in Canada, has been access to capital.

Many other countries that Canada competes with, fashion is part of their culture, whether it be the U.K. or Italy. They get a lot of support from the government. I think that's going to be required here in Canada, if we ever want to truly get behind the creativity that is here in this country.

No matter how hard it is to raise the capital to do that, do everything in your power to buy every property you have occupied if you can. In the end, that will be worth quite a bit of money.

In my early days, fashion was considered a very high risk industry. The failure rate is very high. Trying to get capital and trying to find people who specialize in that industry is very difficult too.

Fashion has never been considered part of culture in Canada, and I think that needs to happen.