Rita Brown has made her mark in the fashion world many times over.

She spent 43 years at the Shaw Festival as a senior cutter and head of wardrobe. She toured internationally promoting Papiers à la Mode with collaborator Isabelle de Borchgrave, featuring paper dresses Brown designed and de Borchgrave painted. Her work has taken her from New York to St. Petersburg to London.

Brown, now living in Niagara-on-the-Lake’s Old Town, is also preparing to release a book in early 2026 on the ladies’ riding habit — women’s equestrian sportswear — a project that took her 10 years to complete. The book is titled “The Lady’s Riding Habit: The Evolution of Women’s Equestrian Dress.”

“There weren’t that many books about it,” she said. “And so, I really delved heavily into it.”

But one challenge remains: securing approval to reprint a photo of a notable Ralph Lauren women’s sportswear piece.

Brown said photo permissions for the book cost about $10,000 in total for roughly 150 images, a process that was usually straightforward. She received permission for every photo within a year — except anything from Ralph Lauren.

The book is moving ahead without those images, but Brown said the omission matters because of Ralph Lauren’s influence on the style she is documenting.

“There is no one who, sort of, what shall I say, parlayed his fashion business into a fashion empire by sort of using aspects of both American but I would argue mostly English aristocratic dress,” she said. “And very much of it was parts of the riding habit.”

She said she hoped to include a “lovely” photograph, but struggled to even reach the company, despite her decades in fashion.

“I tried to get in touch with Ralph Lauren over a period of two years,” she said.

After receiving no response, she set the issue aside for a time, then asked her son to reach out to a friend who she thought might have contacts at the company. That led nowhere, as did her efforts to contact the Ralph Lauren public relations department.

“Nothing seemed to work,” said Brown.

That brings her back to NOTL.

Her friend Ruth Denyer wondered whether someone in town might have a connection to Ralph Lauren.

Denyer believes that in NOTL, “there’s a way to connect to anyone if you know where to look,” citing an example of a local connection that linked her to George Clooney.

Brown hopes someone in NOTL can help her reach the fashion house and secure permission for the image — a detail she says is significant for those who care about the history of women’s sport.

“It was the first set of clothing especially made for a woman to participate in sport,” she said.

daniel@niagaranow.com