So close – yet so far

The fur was flying over Miss Canada’s plans to wear a sealskin dress from Nunavut at the Miss Universe pageant in Panama on June 3.

New York designer Marc Bouwer pleaded with Leanne Cecile, Miss Canada 2003, of Tecumseh, Ontario, not to wear the $15,000 dress.

He asked her to “have a change of heart about killing animals for fashion,” the Canadian Press reported. Instead of the floor length gown with fox fur trim, Bouwer offered Cecile one of his faux fur coats.

As it turns out, the beauty queen, on leave from finishing a doctorate in chemistry, never wore the sealskin garment by Dolorosa Nartok.

But public pressure had nothing to do with Cecile’s decision.

“I guess she left it too late. The dress was hanging here in my office along with the head piece,” said assistant furrier Louise Troyansky. Troyansky was one of several people overseeing alterations to the dress in Montreal.

Cecile was one of the top 10 finishers at the pageant. The crown went to an 18-year-old from the Dominican Republic.

Cecile spotted the floor-length gown at the North American Fur and Fashion Exhibition in Montreal in May. The outfit, a wedding dress, is one of a dozen funky fur garments from Arviat’s Kiluk Ltd. 2003 collection.

By the time Troyansky tracked down Cecile’s manager in Toronto last week, Cecile was already in Panama.

“He apologized profusely and said he’d assumed she’d called me when he told her to call me,” Troyansky said.

The dress is back in Iqaluit and will tour to trade shows in Canada and Europe.

Diana Giroux, the manager of Kiluk Ltd., said Cecile was smitten with the outfit.

“She fell in love with it and said she wanted to wear it at the Miss Universe pageant when contestants wear garments that represent their country,” Giroux told Nunatsiaq News in an interview last month.

Despite Cecile’s decision not to wear sealskin during the nationally televised pageant, the publicity will likely be worth the disappointment.

The dress belongs to Nunavut’s department of sustainable development. For three consecutive years, DSD paid to have a collection of dresses, pants and jackets made. In return, the items tour for promotional purposes.

The anti-fur sentiments expressed by Bouwer drew the ire of Letia Cousins of Iqaluit. Cousins responded with a letter published in the Globe and Mail.

“In Nunavut, we are not about killing animals for fashion… We are about hunting animals for food and then using the fur for clothing,” Cousins wrote.