Death and fashion abound in Jeanne Beker's new memoir, 'Heart on My Sleeve'

But after fashion, death is the second through line in 'Heart on My Sleeve,' which tells the TV personality's life story as reflected by the items in her wardrobe.

Jeanne Beker didn't set out to write a memoir about loss.

But after fashion, death is the second through line in "Heart on My Sleeve," which tells the TV personality's life story as reflected by the items in her wardrobe.

Such morbidity might seem a departure for the effervescent fashion journalist, but at 72, Beker has lost a lot of people: her parents, close childhood friends, many of the fashion designers she came to know over the course of her career.

At the forefront of Beker's literary closet is an item long stored in the back of her mother's literal one: a tattered leather satchel she'd carried with her through the Holocaust as she and her husband — Beker's father — evaded Nazis. It was filled with photos of their family members, none of whom made it out alive.

"I grew up hearing stories about death. I grew up hearing stories about the Holocaust and the grandparents that I never knew and the aunts and uncles and cousins I never had," Beker said in a video call from the home she keeps outside Toronto.

"Growing up and hearing those stories incessantly, and knowing the profound impact that had on my parents, of course that all became a part of me. So perhaps that is one of the lenses through which I see my life — knowing everything is temporary."

That carpe diem philosophy spurred her to hop on stage at a Ronnie Hawkins concert in 1969, to move to New York to study acting and to Paris to study mime under a great master, before accepting a job co-hosting "The NewMusic" on Citytv