Sunny Choi

The stylish Torontonian reinvented herself with her first love

SOMETIMES YOUR PROFESSIONAL JOURNEY can take an abrupt U-turn. Like that of designer Sunny Choi, who closed her successful fashion label after 20 years and returned to one of her earlier passions – portrait painting. “According to my mother, I was drawing faces since I was a child,” says Choi. “I was like an apple, ripe and ready to drop – there was no fear giving up one career and making the transition to another. Besides, I always knew sooner or later I’d get back to painting.”

For two decades, the 62-year-old designer ran her eponymous label, a womenswear collection that was renowned for its evening wear and special occasion dresses and which gained retail success in major department stores in the U.S., before closing the business several years ago.

Her reasons? A changing fashion industry, and with her children all grown up, she also began to think she needed a change of pace and gears.

After operating her own gallery on Queen Street West, she decided to move the business to her home, which she shares with her husband, converting part of the property into an artist studio and gallery space.

Not missing the frantic and chaotic pace of the fashion industry or working among a large staff, Choi now works alone in her studio – often painting in silence.

“That’s the beauty of getting old. You get to be solitary.” — Derick Chetty

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