London fashion designer ­Carmina De Young is bringing her first ready-to-wear collection to market with the support of two local fashion mavens, wardrobe and image consultant Susan Jacobs, and business mentor Gloria Dona.

De Young’s Spring/Summer 2016 collection is now available by appointment at the Pop with Purpose studio,

The studio recently held an informal fashion show featuring De Young’s collection.

De Young was born and raised in Puebla, Mexico and discovered her passion as a young child, taking inspiration from her mother’s creative flair for fashion and design.

A graduate of Fanshawe College’s Fashion Design program, De Young’s clothing has been showcased locally and on national platforms, including at Vancouver Fashion Week and at the Caisa Fashion Show at Western University.

De Young started her own label in 2012 and now has a 25-piece ready-to-wear collection ranging from office to casual activities to a night on the town.

Each piece is available in size XS to XL with prices ranging from $79 to $259.

Instead of trying to break into the notoriously-difficult retail market, Dona and Jacobs offered to bring the De Young collection directly to London women through the Pop with Purpose studio.

“We love that we can offer women locally designed and manufactured clothing where they know the designer and know that they are helping make dreams come true,” says Jacobs. “There’s power in that. It’s incredible.”

Topspin scoops award

London-based Topspin Technologies Ltd., has been awarded the Synapse Life Sciences award for innovation in health. Their product, the Topspin360, beat out more than 60 invited applicants for products that demonstrate an innovation in health in Ontario.

This award follows the London-based Techalliance “Techcellence” award the company won earlier this year.

The Topspin360 is the first patented training device that helps improve neck muscles to reduce concussion risk.

Theo Versteegh, who earned his PhD in physiotherapy from Western University in 2016, developed the device after watching the Sidney Crosby hit in 2011 that caused his concussion.

Versteegh found that many sports concussions are the result of the whiplash effect.

The Topspin can be used in all sports, especially those at high risk for concussion, and also in military applications.

Northerner joins Fortune

David Ramsay, a former cabinet minister in the government of the Northwest Territories, has joined the board of directors of London-based Fortune Minerals .

Ramsay has more than 20 years of elected public office experience in the Northwest Territories. His cabinet portfolios included industry, justice, transportation and public utilities.

Fortune is working with three levels of government on infrastructure projects important to the success of the company’s NICO gold-cobalt-bismuth-copper project in the Northwest Territories.

One project is a 94-kilometre all-season highway to the community of Whati, northwest of Yellowknife.

The road is supported by the Tlicho Government, a Dene First nation and would reduce the cost of living and improve the quality of life in the outlying Tlicho communities and promote economic activity. Fortune has already received environmental assessment approval to build a spur road from Whati to the NICO mine.

Delta hosts bridal show

The London Wedding Professionals will hold their second Bridal Showcase at the Delta London Armouries on April 30.

The event offers a smaller, more intimate experience for brides to meet local wedding industry experts, ask questions, and get inspired for their wedding day.

The show features products and services from professionals including gowns, photography, florists, venues, DJs, hair and makeup and wedding planners.

The showcase also puts a focus on inspiring brides with Vignettes throughout the space showcasing different themes or colour palettes.

The show runs from 11 a.m-3 p.m. and admission is free.

Student makes his pitch

Sean Cornelius from St. André Bessette Catholic secondary school in London is one of 20 teenage entrepreneurs heading to Toronto May 8–10 to compete in this year’s edition of the Young Entrepreneurs, Make Your Pitch competition

Selected from the 204 two-minute video pitches entered, Cornelius earned the right to participate in a Dragon’s Den-style pitch contest at Discovery, Ontario Centres of Excellence’s annual innovation-to-commercialization conference, to be held on May 9 at Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

Hamilton Road looks ahead

Business people in the Hamilton Road will hold an information meeting Wednesday about the creation of the Community Improvement Plan that could lead to the creation of the Hamilton Road Business Improvement Area. The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at the BMO Sports Centre on Rectory St. and guest speakers include Mayor Matt Brown and MPP Teresa Armstrong.Read more at:www.marieaustralia.com/****-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/vintage-formal-dresses

A Grande Iced coffee sweetened with whole milk always
supplied Trey, the Zombie, with energy. On a bright yellow morning
Trey sat down on a canvass deck chair outside of Starbucks.
He puffed on his e-cigarette. Then he took a sip from his plastic cup.
And as he tasted the refreshing creamy coffee, he remembered
what it was like to be a human being. Before the infection decimated
the world’s population of men, women, and children, everybody
was killing each other with double barreled shotguns, sleeping
with their best friend’s girlfriend to prove that they were not
in love with their best friend, forcing girls and women of all
ages into cramped basements leaving them with a bowl of
white rice and a cup of water, telling them that they had to sleep
with strange men who lived in America and other countries polluted
with lust and desire, or else they would get sent to the bottom
of a swamp where the Alligators roamed the muddy shores in
search of flesh. Trey remembered that he had been a college student
living at home, working as a tennis instructor part time at the
rec center down the street from where he resided at.
This little girl Amy bit him on the ankle. It was the first time
he had taught her how to hit a topspin serve with such
velocity that the tennis ball would bounce off the service box
and rise over the chain-linked fence, where the zombies were, crawling
over and up onto the hard courts. As Trey drank his iced coffee
he realized that life was more pleasant now. People didn’t shoot each
other anymore. Closeted gays and lesbians didn’t sleep with their best friend’s boyfriends and girlfriends just to prove that they were heterosexuals. And wicked men with shaggy hair and yellow teeth didn’t buy young girls and women from cramped basements and **** them because they had the money and the motivation to follow their lustful desires. No. None of this happened anymore. Now that the Zombies had taken over. Everybody just went to Starbucks, and drank iced coffees sweetened with milk.