Designer Profile

Laurie Godin

I studied fashion, colour and textiles at Ryerson University in Toronto Canada. While studying there, I worked part-time and during holidays in the fabric department at Eaton's, a major department store chain in Canada. At that time, the fabric department was a kingdom! It occupied half of the entire sales floor and the store was a full city block. The fabrics carried there were imported from around the world and were amazing; many of the weaves seen then are no longer available today. I had always loved to sew having learned at my grandmother's knee, but I think this is where I truly learned to love textiles.

Upon graduation, I began to work at Eaton's full-time and progressed through many positions, finally becoming the national buyer for fabrics for the company. Of course, this is where I developed a relationship with Northcott, as they became one of my key suppliers. Northcott had been a distributor of various American and European mills up until this time. They hired me to develop their own fabric lines, originally for fashion merchandise then gradually changing until we now concentrate on printed fabrics mainly for the quilt, craft and home decor markets. I am now happy to be celebrating my 27th year with the company, and while retirement is in my near future, I will always be active in this industry.