Lisa Drader-Murphy 

 

Entering an old apple barn into an elegant world of fashion and design made us glad that we are women. Lisa Drader-Murphy owner of Turbine Fashion Design Studio & The Cafe in Falmouth Nova Scotia has successfully brought design and fashion with the use of vintage fabric to rural Nova Scotia. Lisa grew up loving design of any type ,fashion to architecture. Have started to pursue a degree in philosophy, part way through she followed her hearts desire to the calling of fashion and graduated top of her class from Form and Function Design Academy in Calgary. An accomplished designer from Calgary; Lisa had two shops and a third to be opened in Banff. In addition to her shops Lisa has many successful exterior projects.

An opportunity arose to move to Nova Scotia, Lisa and her husband Carey made the choice to leave the fast pace life of Calgary and relocated their young family to Falmouth Nova Scotia. Lisa expressed “Calgary was a lot to walk away from”, however she places such importance on being there for her family so the move to Falmouth has given her the opportunity to strike a balance between family and work. Coming to Nova Scotia was not been without its challenges, one of her many winter experiences included a snow storm, which we Nova Scotians refer to as White Juan, during which her basement flooded. This was one of many personal adjustments “A city girl” makes when living in rural Nova Scotia.

On a business level she had to reinvent Turbine to accommodate the different styles which Western Canada and Eastern Canada conducted business. This presented Lisa with yet another challenge she could tackle. Lisa believed in herself and her designs enough to take a risk to approach women’s groups and personally created an out of the box idea “The Turbine Experience”. This move took an enormous amount of tenacity on Lisa’s behalf. This has resulted in Turbine having a very loyal clientele.

Lisa has much support from her family and other extended family members. She also contributes her strong work ethic, self sufficient and independent nature in part to her strict up bringing. She was fortunate enough to find role models within her family members as well as several teachers during her school years.

While sharing our time with Lisa her beauty, grace and intelligent is apparent. When asked about moments of self doubt, she answered honestly that yes she has moments. Even though she may have moments of self doubt, Lisa is in-tune enough with herself to look inward and summon the strength to move forward. As women it is alright to have moments of self doubt but it is how we choose to handle it that makes the difference.

What Lisa values most about herself is her loyalty, her loyalty to friends, partner and loyalty in others. This is evidence in the atmosphere in her work place. Lisa has created a family friendly business, where staff members can bring their children to work when necessary. In addition to her loyalty, she has a very generous spirit and has created “The Turbine Fund“. Please be sure to check this out on www.turbine.ca

When asked if Lisa had one message to give to women, she responded “Be courageous, don’t let others doubts be your own doubts“. In the future Lisa would like to expand her wholesale collection and continue keeping her family life “in balance”.

We would like to thank Lisa for the time she spent with us. We both look forward to visiting with her again and shopping at Turbine Fashion Design Studio.