When Margaret Atwood, Judy Dench and Dame Maggie Smith replied back to North Vancouver's Juanita Valentine, she danced a little jig.
Valentine had written the three asking them to donate scarves that will be auctioned off at a special fundraiser to aid Pacific Assistance Dogs Society - a non-profit organization that trains assistance dogs for people with disabilities other than blindness.
Atwood sent three scarves while Dench and Smith sent one each to Valentine. The fundraiser is a high tea and historical fashion show featuring the looks and impacts the First and Second World Wars had on women's style.
"These three answered right away," said Valentine, a PADS volunteer since 1993. "When I got Maggie Smith's, I just about did a jig. She was the first one that I wrote to."
Up to the early 20th century, women's fashion had stayed fairly stagnant in terms of looking conservative and wearing dresses or skirts at longer lengths.
But by the roaring '20s and wars, the dramatic world events and lifestyles paralleled in the fashion world. Skirts broke records by being hiked up above the knee and as men went off to war, women started filling in their jobs as well as fitting into pants.
"It's just showing how the wars changed fashion and then of course there was the emancipation of women," Valentine said. "My aunts used to do the Charleston and bruise their knees and do all these things. We really wanted to honour the war too because (the fundraiser) comes just after Remembrance Day."
The Paws to Remember fundraiser takes place Nov. 16, and will feature noted fashion historian Ivan Sayers.
"He's so knowledgeable," Valentine said. Sayers specializes in the study of fashion from 1650 to the present day. He has one of the most comprehensive private collections of historical clothing in the country and has lectured all over western and central North America. But the purpose of getting the scarves to auction off for a fashion-inspired fundraiser is to raise money for a new PADS dog trainer.
Valentine and a team of volunteers are organizing the event to help meet the demand of people needing assistance dogs.
Frances Randall, who's raised and bred about 18 puppies over the last seven-and-a-half years for PADS, said with a new trainer the organization will be able to get more dogs through the training program faster. "We've got quite a few dogs and a very long list of people waiting for dogs and needing dogs," she noted.
Randall and Valentine were both inspired to help PADS because someone close to each of them benefitted from a relationship with a four-legged friend.
Valentine had a disabled father with a Pekinese dog who kept him company. "He couldn't help him physically, but emotionally it was just wonderful," she said. "He had him with him all the time - even slept on the bed with him." One of Valentine's cousins had Parkinson's disease and would go out for walks with his own small dog. When he fell, despite the dog not being able to help him back up, it would not leave his side.
"Then I heard about PADS," she said. "They're trained. They can help somebody if they fall. They can help them get up."
Randall knows a young woman who benefitted from having a PADS dog. The woman is wheelchair bound and used to fear being home alone, talking to people and leaving the house.
But a PADS dog changed all that.
After a few years with the dog, she's became more comfortable venturing out, making new friends, and now lives on her own.
"It opens a whole new life," Randall added. "I think it makes a huge difference."
Paws to Remember is being hosted at the Holiday Inn, 700 Old Lillooet Rd., North Vancouver at 1:30 p.m. for the high tea and 2 to 5 p.m. for the fashion show. The event will feature door prizes, a raffle and holiday shopping. Tickets are $35 a person or $240 for a table of eight. For more information, visit pads.ca/events.
