It might be March, but winter is hardly over, and these custom-order handmade wool coats from the Northwest Territories make cold snaps slightly more bearable. The jackets are available in Toronto thanks to Sandy Rubin, who 10 years ago was sent on a reporting assignment up north. A self-declared “city girl who hates the cold,” Rubin cursed her editor until she stumbled upon a group of women sewing and stitching gorgeous ladies’ parkas decorated with northern imagery, like polar bears and kayaks. She bought one immediately and was complimented whenever she wore it in Toronto.

Rubin hoped someone would start selling them here, but no one ever did. “I finally decided I was going to have to do it myself,” she says, so she launched Mush!Mush! “I think arctic fashion is going to take off. These coats are genuine arctic wear with an urban tweak.” So far, the coats are available only on her Web site and at a few Rosedale home “parka parties.”

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