How 15 across in a New Yorker crossword inked an amazing moment for a Halifax designer

Veronica MacIsaac has a feeling she stumped plenty of Americans earlier this month.

The Halifax-based fashion designer, who is known for her sharp looks incorporating tartan, was recently featured as a clue in a crossword puzzle in the magazine The New Yorker.

When someone first mentioned it on Instagram, saying they had East Coast pride to see her name there, MacIsaac said she was confused.

"I thought maybe they meant that Nova Scotia was in The New Yorker," MacIsaac said with a laugh to CBC's Information Morning on Wednesday.

"So I went and looked it up and I kind of sat there for a couple of minutes, just not understanding why, why this would be a clue."

The clue, which at 15 across read "signature fabric for designer Veronica MacIsaac," appeared online on Nov. 3 but wasn't in print until Nov. 15.

When it landed on the shelves of Atlantic News, a magazine store in Halifax, MacIsaac said she bought four copies.

While MacIsaac said some clever crossword buff might have figured out the answer was tartan based on her Scottish name, she felt bad for the people who refuse to use Google to finish a puzzle.

"But now that it's happened like, you know, that is so cool," she said. "It's one of the coolest things that maybe ever happened to me."

How she got into the puzzle is still a mystery at the moment. MacIsaac said she's looked up the creator, but can't find any connection between them on social media, like whether they know her work from the bagpipe or highland dancing worlds.

It might be that the author needed to use the word tartan and worked backwards from there, she said.

MacIsaac said she has had amazing moments in her career, like appearing in the pages of British Vogue or showing her work in New York, but she had time to wrap her head around those beforehand.

"This was just so out of the blue," she said. "These things are just so bizarre to me because you're so used to being alone and working alone, but you don't realize that people know about you outside of Halifax."