Once they were the best of friends. Now they are vicious enemies with a mysterious past. For the first time, read the real story of The Sophisticate and The Social Climber. By Mimi M.

It is a sparkling, glamorous affair: fashion’s beautiful people are in the hottest, hippest spot, sipping bubbly champagne while sharing the latest gossip, though one talkative voice is more loquacious than others. It is the loud, brash sound of Fiona Newsome, pushy gossip reporter and gal-about-town. With her severe, sleek, black ponytail, she’s hard to miss. At first glance, she appears to be everyone’s friend, but on closer inspection, her entourage comes and goes like a tide at an Ibiza beach. While coridial and gracious, nobody stays near Fiona for long. And the person who stays farthest away is elite fashion reporter, Lucinda McRuvy.

For years, couture crowds speculated on their riotous relationship, not knowing precise points about their friend breakup. There were whispers of everything from theft, counterfeiting, drug use, and forced bulimia to the legendary Girdle Incident.

Fiona is renowned for tantrums, brush-offs, and social climbing. She can also be irrational; the most extreme example being the Girdle Incident. When Newsome and McRuvy were solidifying journalistic reputations in 1999, they were competing on a story about a new generation of foundation garments. Newsome heard that while investigating the buzz, McRuvy thought that sleek, stylish shapers could form the basis of a moneymaking venture, and was working on samples. Jealousy got the better of Fiona one night at a Canadian Opera Company function where she overheard Lucinda talk about her new, potentially lucrative venture. Lucinda admitted that she was wearing a visually unflattering (but thigh-shaping and butt-enhancing) girdle garment under her Misura dress. After a few too many crantinis, Fiona contemptuously flipped up Lucinda’s skirt so everyone could glimpse the undergarment. Lucinda, ever the Mistress of Etiquette, was stunned. She darted from the event and was not seen for many months. The friendship was gone for good as was the business (Enterprising readers will know that the hyper-successful SPANX line of foundation garments was launched in 2000, which meant that Lucinda lost out on building an entrepreneurial empire).

The two were never seen in public together since that night. Until recently.

Fashion insiders have heard rumours about recurring spats, from competing television show pitches and military-like plans for exclusive interviews to show seat sieges. The latest and most whisper-worthy episode was when Fiona flung a champagne glass across the Drake Hotel after a confrontation with Lucinda. Will it get worse before it gets better? Will it divide the Canadian fashion community? What happened to this fashion friendship that was once so promising?

Fiona Newsome met Lucinda McRuvy at Ryerson in the early 1990’s when they were both studying fashion design. Lucinda was smart, sophisticated, confident, and – by all accounts – a prodigious designer. Every girl wanted to be her, or more importantly, dress like her. Back then she had the impeccable style she displays today. Yes, she has always dressed well.

While not particularly design-inclined, Fiona had the gift of gab, knowing what to say to who and how to say it. Some classmates felt Fiona a bit of a social climber, using and abusing people, moving up the class ranks until she got her trophy-friend, Lucinda. Lucinda, on the other hand, was gracious and caring, helping friends during late-night study sessions, and always believing the good in people. She was in for a shock.

During school, the two friends became inseparable and had always planned to start a business together. It was possible after graduation because Lucinda came into money after a family tragedy. She thought she would put it to good use by investing in a clothing company with Fiona.

It was doomed from the start, though neither knew it. In post-adolescent innocence, both girls assumed they thought the same way and had the same goals, but both had vastly different expectations for their relationship and business. Lucinda wanted to establish a demure, high-quality Canadian couture label, whereas Fiona wanted fame and attention with a streetwear empire. Their first collection in 1991 would also be their last.

Colleagues who overheard conversations at the time knew of the design disparity between the two. Fiona followed trends and was very into grunge anti-fashion. Lucinda stuck to tailored, elegant, Audrey Hepburn-inspired designs, which led to a confused collection. Fiona gave in for a while since Lucinda was the financier, but when Lucinda was called away on family business a week before the label’s debut, Fiona took the reigns.

About to show the collection of a lifetime, Lucinda was worried, but held confidence in her best-friend-forever. She felt Fiona understood her design philosophy and goals, but Fiona’s addiction to quick attention and fast cash sold out the friendship. Due to a series of unfortunate events that kept Lucinda from returning to Toronto until moments before the show, she arrived too late and found her refined designs destroyed, deconstructed, and covered in plaid patches. Fiona’s fast talking delayed a full backstage blowout and they managed some good press and a few store orders.

Lucinda was left with manufacturing duties and Fiona was to manage finances and sales. The pair eyed expansion too quickly, so Fiona jetted to Europe’s fashion capitals and fell in love with an Italian stallion named Luigi Bugiardo, who turned out to be nothing more than a handsome hustler. He appealled to Fiona’s fame and fortune vanities, so she fell for his story that he was the biggest fashion player in Italy. He convinced her to sign the company’s rights to him and give him banking information. They spent one night together and she never saw him – or the company’s money – again.

Or did she?

Somehow, Fiona managed to remain friends with Lucinda and talk herself out of the financial fiasco, but nobody knows exactly what was said between them. Rumours have swirled that Fiona lost upwards of $50,000 of Lucinda’s money, but even bigger rumours regard what happened after the business bust-up. Both left Canada for some time, but records of their respective two-year departures are sketchy.

Fiona claims that she held an assistant designer position at the exclusive European House of Veritas and worked for notorious recluse, Heinrich VonHabermiller. Since VonHabermiller never gave interviews and never communicated with anyone outside of his inner circle, and that inner circle is forbidden to communicate with the rest of the world, Fiona’s employment could never be confirmed, especially after VonHabermiller’s untimely death. She returned to Canada as an instant design star, nobody questioning her claims.

Until now.

Determined to get to the bottom of this Canadian fashion mystery, this intrepid reporter relentlessly contacted Heinrich VonHabermiller’s estate to obtain answers and the Canadian fashion industry will be shocked to learn that Fiona Newsome never worked at the House of Veritas!

If she wasn’t there, where was she?

Again, this intrepid reporter has found the answer. Luigi Bugiardo never existed! “Bugiardo” means liar in Italian and we now know who is the liar: Fiona Newsome!

As far as this intrepid reporter can tell, Fiona spent two years travelling across Europe, spending Lucinda’s money, living a Talented Ms. Ripley lifestyle, but it proved difficult to confirm exact details until I befriended Fiona Newsome recently in hopes of getting the story. And did I get a story! One night after too many mojitos from a fashionable event at the Drake Hotel, Fiona mistook me for her confidante and spilled her European vacation secrets. With those big-as-Dumbo-ears of hers, she should be able to discern genuine friendship, but this intrepid reporter knew how to appeal to Fiona’s vanity: she wanted to be best friends with the world’s hottest model and I used it to finally get the truth. “What’s in these things?” she asked as she tipped a mojito and poured her secrets into my ear. I felt like Lois Lane after discovering the truth about Clark Kent. I found the Kryptonite in Canada’s fashion past.

More difficult details to confirm were Lucinda McRuvy’s whereabouts after the fall of her business. The common rumours were that Fiona started her on a bulimic habit that took her to an eating disorder facility; that Lucinda began a nasty drug habit; and that she had to go to Asia and head a fashion counterfeiting ring to make ends meet.

Once again, your intrepid reporter found the truth to the rumours. The first two are completely false. The truth is that Lucinda McRuvy spent two years in Asia designing knockoff Chanel, Hermes, Vuitton, and Dior purses. The experience left her cold enough to give up designing for good, but it did leave her with enough funds to get her out of debt and start a new life in Montreal.

After experiencing the betrayal she did, Lucinda McRuvy became enchanted with journalism and the desire to report the truth. She studied at McGill University and met a hockey player hunk, Brad “The Basher” Brine, who she would later marry. After experiencing life as a hockey wife, she achieved writing fame with her “Puckbunny Diaries” and transitioned into fashion writing, where she was able to reconcile her love of fashion design and writing.

When Fiona Newsome realized Lucinda was becoming more famous than she was through journalism, Fiona followed Lucinda’s footsteps and has been trailing her in media endeavours ever since.

But why has Lucinda never come forward with this story? Surely she wants to reveal the truth and expose Fiona Newsome for the no-good bitchy liar she really is. Not true. Lucinda is the essence of sophistication and femininity through and through. “Those who want the truth will find it out for themselves,” Lucinda told me one night at the BuyDesign Gala. “It is not my place to go badmouthing someone I mistook for a friend. Not only that, but the truth is dreadfully embarrassing. I don’t necessarily want to expose my life in that way.”

Since Lucinda won’t do it, I considered it my responsibility to expose the truth behind Canada’s greatest fashion feud.