Dalia MacPhee just experienced her first holiday season as a Toluca Lake resident, and she’s in love. “From the decked-out holiday lights on every street to the charming caroling truck on Christmas Eve, I felt like I had been teleported into a 1950s Christmas movie the entire month of December,” she says. At the Holiday Open House, “I must have run into at least eight neighbors who have already become like family. Where can you find that in L.A., or any big city?”
The Canadian-born fashion designer divides her time between the Los Angeles area and a residence in Vancouver. But in the nine months or so since making a home in Toluca Lake, she’s had no trouble finding her niche at favorite spots like Priscilla’s, Prosecco Trattoria and Forman’s. Her border collie mix, Lilly, has thrived in the neighborhood too, stopping for pup cups at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, becoming “a bit of a local celebrity” at Trader Joe’s and befriending fellow dogs in this pet-loving community where “the pups all have their own social club with regular playdates,” MacPhee notes. “Being Canadian, I absolutely love the warm, small-town vibe of the area,” she adds. “To be close to all the major amenities of Los Angeles and yet have this little getaway of tranquil tree-lined streets and charming homes is truly unique.”
Uniqueness is something MacPhee knows plenty about. Equally inspired by fashion and technology, she’s dedicated her career to “changing the world one garment at a time.” Her designs emphasize affordability, wearability, size inclusivity and sustainability, and have been worn on red carpets, in print and on TV by celebrities including Sandra Bullock, Nina Dobrev, Serena Williams, Mel B and Hilary Duff. Combining creativity with a knack for problem-solving, her interest in wearable tech stretches beyond the world of apparel into fields such as medicine, animal welfare and even space exploration. Her innovative ideas have garnered her coverage in media ranging from Entertainment Tonight to The New Yorker, honors from the consul general of Canada and the opportunity to present a TEDx talk. “If you think of technology and how it has impacted almost every aspect of life, from automobiles to phones to health care, fashion is still in the dark ages,” she says — and she’s doing her utmost to propel it into the future.
Designing for Superwomen
MacPhee grew up immersed in the fashion business; her parents owned a chain of Canadian clothing stores, so she spent her afterschool hours hanging out in their shops and her holidays accompanying them on overseas factory visits. “I remember returning to school one year and being asked to write about my summer vacation. Most of the kids wrote about Disneyland. I wrote about NAFTA,” she says. Despite (or because of) this, she had no interest in entering the industry herself, instead focusing on her love for debate and public speaking — at age 14, she was ranked the top public speaker in Canada. While studying pre-law at university, however, she started getting in touch with her creative side. After creating a small jewelry line that she sold to several boutiques, she found her true passion: dresses.
At just 20 years old, “I created a small capsule collection of around 12 to 15 gowns, and with some air miles traveled to a trade show in Atlanta,” MacPhee recalls. Her designs’ clean silhouettes were a far cry from the prom-style products of her competitors, “fully beaded gowns showing lots of skin and not much else.” Realizing her youth could be an advantage, she told buyers, “I’m the age of your customer; this is what they want.” She managed to open up about 30 new accounts at that show, which helped her get sales representation across North America. A year later, her brand was sold in more than 1,200 boutiques and most major department stores.
MacPhee describes her style as “old Hollywood with a modern twist,” but she believes the most important component of fashion is not the garment, but the wearer. Describing a distinct memory of watching her mother and her store manager help a customer gain transformative confidence through a few well-chosen pieces of apparel, she says, “I learned early on that while clothing may shelter us, fashion empowers us. This is our mission as designers: to create superwomen capes. Superwomen come in all sizes and so must our capes. It’s easy to create something that looks great on the runway, but to create something that looks great on all women — this is my style.”
Taking Fashion to New Heights
That blend of idealism and practicality drives MacPhee to not only stay on the cutting edge of fashion, but also dream big about what’s next. “Our everyday clothing could literally be healing us right now,” she explains. “It could be detecting tumors, it could be sending messages to loved ones, it could be protecting us from falls. What about a shirt that changes color to the exact shade of clothing worn by the most compatible person to you in the room? We now have the technology to take fashion to the next frontier.”
Always fascinated by the intersection of clothing and tech, early in her career MacPhee released “the first premium denim fiber-optic jeans.” The product was carried by Macy’s but was a bit ahead of its time, she admits. A few years ago, however, Google asked her to revamp the technology, which she used to create a smartphone-controlled color-changing LED dress that was worn by actor Cierra Ramirez to host an event geared toward inspiring teens’ interest in computer science. MacPhee next used the technology to develop “a purse that illuminates when you have a call, and changes color depending on who’s calling. It also lets you know if you forgot your keys and wallet,” she adds.
Her inventions aren’t simply fun novelties — many are geared toward actively improving people’s health and well-being. During the pandemic, for example, MacPhee not only produced protective gowns for hospitals, but also created a wallet that holds two face masks and heats up to 180 degrees to kill most pathogens. In addition, she’s designed clothes with pockets that block cellphone radiation and is working on athletic wear that reduces muscle pain and inflammation.
And her fashions aren’t just designed for people. A horseback rider since the age of 7, MacPhee was moved to create a product to protect equines after her own horse, Wolfie, was threatened by wildfires in Calabasas in 2016. “The evacuation trailers were not allowed through (this is common), and the fire department literally told us to ‘set the horses loose or hose them down so they burn slower,’” she remembers. Fortunately, Wolfie was unharmed, but a year later, hundreds of horses had to be set loose during the Lilac fire in San Diego; some were killed or suffered severe burns, and others went missing. MacPhee responded with the Equisafe blanket, a fully fire-retardant horse blanket with built-in GPS tracking that passed multiple tests for efficacy and environmental safety, was endorsed by California fire chiefs and was picked up by one of the top equestrian retailers in the U.S. “In developing a proprietary nontoxic solution for the blanket, I accidentally created an environmentally friendly liquid retardant that I hope one day can be used to help fight wildfires via drone,” she adds. She has since created a version of the blanket for dogs, as well as a life jacket for horses and livestock, a wireless heated puff jacket for dogs and even a secure, insulated, waterproof blanket for baby elephants and rhinos orphaned by poaching in Africa.
As if all that weren’t enough, MacPhee’s work is on its way to space as part of NASA’s first return to the lunar surface in more than 50 years. “I was asked by the curator of Space Blue to participate in the historic Lunaprise Moon Museum mission,” she shares. Partnered with a collaboration of space contractors (IM-1 mission) under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, Lunaprise is the world’s first capsule and museum, carrying works by 222 selected artists utilizing Web3, digital twin and nanotechnology tools for inscribing, engraving and preserving art pieces. It launched on February 15 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Kennedy Space Center. “It’s an honor and a bit surreal to be involved with this mission, especially as I have always been fascinated with space,” MacPhee says. “To be able to look up at the moon from Earth and know that some of the best parts of me made it there, it’s very special.
At Home With Style
While she may have her eyes on the skies, in the here and now MacPhee is working on the release of her company’s spring dress and pajama lines (both vegan) and a new project in conjunction with Goodwill that involves putting digital messages into clothing. “You can track what the dress has done and whose lives it has changed,” she explains. “Think Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants version 2.0. It’s my digital superwomen cape project.”
She also continues to put down roots in her neighborhood and draw creative inspiration from its distinctive style. “If Toluca Lake were a dress, it would be that one unique magical piece you find hiding in the back of a quaint bespoke shop you stumbled upon while in Paris,” MacPhee muses. “This is a neighborhood unlike any other. Each home is unique, with its own architecture and incredible history. There is no cookie-cutter here. People take pride in their homes. You see this in the attention to detail, from little things like flowers to big things like Halloween décor. It is a reminder to put care and celebration into everything we create, and that creativity affects not just the creator, but the beholder. Thank you to the entire Toluca Lake community for being so warm and welcoming to this Canuck!”