Monahan, Iona, 1923- : Iona Monahan was born August 4, 1923 in Point St. Charles, Quebec. She attended St. Gabriel's Academy elementary school and D'Arcy McGee secondary school. She also attended Marianopolis College, but did not complete her studies. She began working as a parcel girl at Eaton's when she was 14 in downtown Montreal. According to several sources, she had an intuitive ability to spot style trends, and she was promoted to manager of the European clothes boutique. She became the couture buyer for Eaton's by the time she was 21 (1944).
She began working for the commercial photographic studio Arnott, Rogers & Sauer in 1947, (1947-1951) first as a receptionist/model and began to gather experience producing and directing fashion shows, co-ordinating models and supervising photography shoots. She worked freelance for public relations agencies, including Garber/Cossman. She appeared on television as a fashion commentator/personality having created fashion shows specifically for television. Some of the fashion shows she produced over the years include Furs-on-Floats at the Montreal Forum, a fashion-in-miniatures puppet show with Québec puppeteer Micheline Legendre, and fur show at Studio 54 in New York.
She signed on with Mayfair magazine as fashion editor in 1956, with her first contributing issue appearing in January 1956 (The magazine, which started in 1927, published it's first issue independently of it's parent organization in December 1955). She stayed until shortly before the magazine folded in 1959. The last issue with her name on the masthead is the July 1959 issue, after which the fashion section became greatly diminished. The magazines last issue was December 1959. During her tenure at Mayfair, she had the opportunity to travel extensively, attending the Paris fashion shows twice yearly to report on the Spring and Fall collections, as well as several other European cities, such as Rome and London. In 1956, she meet with Christian Dior, who had designed a dress specifically for the magazine, called the Mayfair Dress, covered in the Feb 1956 issue. In 1958 she traveled around the world (London, Rome, Paris, Istanbul, Tel Aviv, Nicosia, Beirut, Calcutta, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Athens, and Tokyo) for 4 weeks as fashion editor with photographer Sam Getz, 4 models, 4 cameras, crates of film and 110 fashion items, for a shoot detailing Canadian fashion industry that appeared in the February-June 1959 issues of Mayfair magazine under the title "Canadian Fashion at Home Everywhere in the World". This fashion editorial is considered a benchmark in the Canadian fashion industry. The show also travelled across Canada to help raise money for various charities. During her time at Mayfair, in addition to hiring well know fashion photographers, she also seems to have photographed certain fashion editorials herself (for example, the June 1959 fashion editorial shot in West Berlin).
She also wrote (and photographed) for The Montrealer magazine, edited the Montreal Star 1972-1976, and Élan -Image de la Mode (a quarterly trade fashion magazine) 1970-72. She was also the Contributing editor at Élan Magazine 1975. French and Italian couture associations produced their Montreal shows under Monahan's direction in the 1960's. During Expo'67, she produced 99 fashion shoes over 10 days at the Canadian Pavilion, and also produced the Montreal Mode fashion show series in 1973-75.
She began working for the Montreal Gazette in 1978 and retired in 2002. In the course of her tenure at the Gazette, she would produce, research and write the 5-6 fashion stories that appeared each week, and organize the photo sessions. She also served as the editor of the Gazette's supplemental magazine "Fashion and Beauty".
Over the years she received numerous awards including:
Voted one of Canada's 10 best-dressed women in a poll of lifestyle editors - 1955
YWCA's Woman of Merit Award - 1976
Woman of the Year (Fashion/Canada) Government of Canada - 1977
20 Great Montrealers (The Queen Elizabeth Hotel) - 1978
Companion of the Order of Canada - 1985
Lifetime achievement award - 2000
Gala held in her honour at the Montreal Ritz-Carleton by the fashion industry - 2000
Appointed Gazette Senior Fashion Editor - 2000
Appointed Gazette Fashion Editor Emeritus - 2002
