Donna Scott: The Chanel-clad powerhouse who made Flare magazine a success

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When Donna Scott launched the trailblazing national fashion magazine Flare in 1979, she became the first female publisher of a consumer magazine in Canada. She then took it to bestselling heights – even outselling U.S. fashion titles.

She began her career in what was then known as personnel and went on to passionately back Flare as its publisher for 15 years. She became the first woman in senior leadership at Maclean Hunter Publishing, combining her role as publisher with that of vice-president, Canada publishing, while also sitting on the company’s management committee.

She later served for four years as chair of the Canada Council for the Arts, at the invitation of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, and then became chief executive officer of the Ontario Arts Council.

When she was invested as an officer of the Order of Canada in 2000, the citation called her “a successful entrepreneur and astute businesswoman.”

“Donna was a real leader, an inspirational leader,” long-time friend Florence Campbell says. “She would see opportunities and she would pounce on them.”

“She assumed a position of leadership at a challenging time for women,” recalls Rona Maynard, who worked under Ms. Scott as a copy editor in the 1970s and was later editor of Maclean Hunter’s Chatelaine. “She wore the mantle of authority with a deep awareness that all eyes were on her.”

Sporting Chanel power suits, Ferragamo shoes and an impeccable hairdresser-coiffed do, Ms. Scott was often the only woman in the room at her job and on the many boards on which she served over the years.

Controversially, she hired Keitha Maclean as the first editor of Flare, although Ms. Maclean had been recently fired from a New York publication for alcoholism. Ms. Scott was open with the team about her choice, telling a young Ms. Maynard in the ladies’ room one day that her new hire “had a bit of a drinking problem and if I find out I’ve made a mistake I’m going to rectify it pretty quick.”

“Keitha was a brilliant founding editor and the right person for the job,” says Ms. Maynard, who admired both Ms. Scott’s choice and her forthright approach.

When Ms. Scott fully retired, she and her husband, Hugh Farrell, moved to Niagara-on-the-Lake. There, she channelled her entrepreneurial spirit into projects such as creating the Niagara-on-the-Lake Historical Sites Alliance, which more than a dozen local sites joined to collectively promote themselves.

Ms. Scott died of a stroke on March 14 at the age of 91. She had been in ill health and experiencing the onset of dementia, yet still pursued volunteer work. A few months before her death, she suggested to her stepson Greg Farrell that they plan a cross-country trip on behalf of the Laura Secord Foundation, to keep spreading the word about this woman she felt was an unsung hero.

Donna Mae Scott was born in Toronto on Sept. 23, 1928, to Olive and Rex Scott. Her father was a pharmacist who later worked for Rexall, and when she was a toddler the family moved to Saskatoon, where he opened stores for the retail chain.

Mr. Scott in particular impressed upon his daughter that she could do anything. Ms. Scott studied industrial relations at Queen’s University and said she was one of the first graduates of the program.

She began her career in personnel at Eaton’s and Tip Top Tailors, then Maclean Hunter. Around this time, she served as the first female president of the Personnel Association of Canada.

She married Jim Hinchey in 1951, but the marriage ended in divorce. Ms. Scott met Hugh Farrell, who worked in labour relations, at a personnel management conference and, by the early 1970s, the two had moved in together. They married in 1980. His four sons often spent time at their Rosedale home.

Ms. Scott rose through the ranks at Maclean Hunter, becoming general manager of the Financial Post conference division, where she built a vast network of professional contacts, Ms. Campbell recalls.

In 1976, she was asked to head up Maclean Hunter’s teen titles, Miss Chatelaine and Teen Generation, but when she took a stack of issues up her to cottage, she wondered if she had made a mistake. She came up with the idea of a new publication for the up-and-coming crop of working women. “These women are going to be interested in dressing for their professional, as well as their personal, life. And they are going to have money to buy clothes,” she was quoted as saying in a 1999 Flare article.

Her first act in taking over the two magazines was to reorganize the supply cupboard, which she did with a lot of care, Ms. Maynard recalls. “Her philosophy was: You should get the foundation absolutely right, the small stuff, before you tackle the big stuff."

Flare launched in 1979 to great success. Ms. Scott mentored her editors, and was key in launching the careers of editors such as Bonnie Fuller, who went on to head Cosmopolitan and Glamour, among other major U.S. titles.

The magazine’s third editor, Shelley Black, says it was outselling American fashion titles in Canada during her tenure in the early 1990s. “Donna was the driving force behind Flare the entire time she was there,” she says. “When she walked into the room with her Chanel suit and her hair perfectly coiffed, she telegraphed the idea that Flare could compete with the best fashion magazines in the world.”

Ms. Scott left Flare in 1994 because of mandatory retirement. She then spent four years at the Canada Council, followed by a short stint at the Ontario Arts Council, where she faced deep budget cuts. In response, she diverted $850,000 from administration into artists’ grants, then, just 18 months into her tenure, she resigned over further cuts proposed by Mike Harris’s provincial government. “I am no bleeding-heart arts maven,” she wrote in a December, 2000, Globe and Mail opinion piece. She went on to track the organization’s declining funds over several years and the impact.

Her postretirement charitable work included fundraising to build a new hospital in St. Catharines, Ont., serving on the board of trustees for Brock University and raising money to replace the bells at a local church.

Ms. Scott always looked tailored and polished.

“Up to the day she died, she presented herself properly to the public,” her stepson Rod says. Her stepsons recall first meeting her when they were in their teens and 20s, and being corrected on their table manners. “That never changed. It continued up until my 60s,” Rod says. “She didn’t have a problem correcting anyone any time, anywhere.”

Ms. Maynard admits she showed up to work in the early days wearing T-shirts and cotton Mary Jane shoes. “Those are bedroom slippers,” Ms. Scott told her once, giving her a withering look. Ms. Maynard soon upgraded her wardrobe.

The Scott-Farrell house in Niagara-on-the-Lake was often the venue for huge parties, with Ms. Scott keeping detailed notes of who was in attendance. Those tapered off dramatically after Mr. Farrell’s death in 2017.

“Donna was an only child and her parents were the world to her,” Rod recalls. “Other than my dad, who she completely adored.”

Ms. Scott was predeceased by her stepson Shane and leaves three other stepsons, Rod, Steven and Greg, plus many grandchildren.