This is the first cultural history of M·A·C Cosmetics and charts the originally Canadian company’s philanthropy around HIV/AIDS awareness and fundraising during the revitalization of the Toronto fashion industry, the rise of the AIDS epidemic in North America, and the commodification of social causes during the 1980s and 1990s.

Andrea Benoit is the Academic Review Officer in the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Toronto, and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Media Studies in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario.

"The book is highly original as there is no other socio-cultural or business history of MAC. Benoit fuses a detailed historical record of MAC, AIDs within a setting of entrepeneurship and the Toronto fashion scene in a readable and enjoyable style that is framed within relevant critical theories that support and explain these histories that have not previously been delineated. This is a work that should be much referenced."

Susan Baxter, associate professor of Marketing and Dean of Graduate Studies, LIM College:

"This is a story that needs to be told. Todays’ generation of fashion students have no history of the losses the industry faced in the 1980s-1990s as the AIDs epidemic was ravishing every level of the fashion and the arts industries. VIVA M·A·C gives them a thorough account of how we got to where we are today."

Jeanne Beker, Journalist, Author, and Style Editor:

"With her extensive and illuminating research, Andrea Benoit tells the powerful story of a fearless company with heart. Harnessing the unbridled creativity that ran rampant in Toronto during M•A•C’s formative years, ‘the Franks’ tapped into the pride and psyche of an entire society and inspired it to new artistic heights. Despite AIDS's dark shadow, Benoit paints a compelling portrait of an exhilarating fashion era, illustrating how courage and compassion can exist on a corporate level when hearts and minds are open and passionate."