BY JACQUIE MOORE PHOTOGRAPHY BY JARED SYCH
DRESSING FOR
WEHAVE What does one do with a background in engineering and fashion design? If you’re Nina Kharey, you make antiviral garments for health-care workers and do right by the planet while you’re at it. et’s get the whole Meghan Markle thing out of the way. On July 17, 2018, the Duchess of Sussex attended an event in London wearing a blush-pink sleeveless trench coat dress. Every fashion magazine from Vogue to Harper’s Bazaar immediately posted photos of Markle accompanied by headlines such as, “Meghan Markle Is Pretty In Blush Pink” and “Meghan Markle is Obsessed with Trench Coat Dresses and So Are We,” and, hilariously understated in Fashionista, “Meghan Markle Wore a Thing.” Meanwhile, in a Calgary suburb, Nina Kharey was pinching herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming: one of the world’s most-watched women was wearing a dress she’d designed. “It was unbelievable, and she looked amazing in it,” says Kharey, whose luxury womenswear line, Nonie, blew up with orders for the stretchy-soft cotton-blend dress (it can be yours, in pink or black, for $1,085). Already a success in Canada with a long list of devoted clients — including a friend of Markle’s who, Kharey presumes, is how the dress made its way to the Duchess — Kharey became an international fashion star overnight. She was
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thrilled. Until she wasn’t. The Markle moment was, in a way, the beginning of the end of Kharey’s long-held passion for the high-end fashion industry. Kharey was born and raised in northeast Calgary and went to high school in Chestermere. Her parents are from Punjab, India, where they were joined in an arranged marriage before immigrating to Canada in the 1970s. Both were soon employed in the textiles industry: Kharey’s mom made men’s suits, and her dad managed a factory that produced knitwear. She recalls the day her dad showed her a sketch of a sweater and, soon after, the completed sweater itself. Magic. “I was amazed at how someone’s thoughts could be made to be worn by people,” she says. Ironically, that moment lit Kharey’s fire for fashion design — ironic because her parents were not supportive of her new interest in their work as a career choice for their daughter. “They said, ‘we didn’t come here all the way from India for you to do what we do,’” says Kharey. “They were very clear that they wanted more for me.” By “more,” her parents meant doctor, lawyer or engineer. Kharey considered the first but ultimately pursued the latter, enrolling in the engineering program at the University of Calgary in 2001 (a decision she appreciates more now than she did at the time) and graduating in 2007.
may/june 2023
