Vancouver’s Very First Indigenous Fashion Week Honours Heritage, Identity, Expression

VANCOUVER – Vancouver’s first-ever Indigenous Fashion Week opens this week at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, and is a long overdue of expression of where past and present Indigenous experiences collaborate with fashion, community, and modern ceremony.

The four-night event features some of the incredible Indigenous designers that go largely overlooked and ignored in Canada, and serves to breakthrough and transform conceptions of Indigenous identity through clothing. The faces of Indigenous design are varied, and similar in that one bead at a time, they spell out their names and stories from behind the sewing machine.

“I think what will surprise people is how they incorporate modern materials with traditional sources like fur, leather, beads and bone,” says Joleen Mitton, who is one of the organizers behind the project.

After working in the fashion industry in Canada and overseas for several years — and experiencing first-hand the appropriation of sacred Indigenous designs committed by fashion giants like H&M and Urban Outfitters — Mitton returned to her roots with the intention of building something that would re-claim, unify, and empower.

“Appropriation in the fashion industry only sees the surface, turns it into a commodity and claims that this is something to exploit,” says Mitton. What gets buried, then, is the interconnectedness of culture and clothing, and what gets silenced are the stories that have been woven and made to pass spiritual meaning down through generations. “Indigenous art is gifted from person to person, from family to family and clan to clan — it symbolizes deep relationship and sacred ceremony.”

Restoring these relationships will take more than one fashion week, which is why Mitton has plans for this to become an annual event. But in its first year, already 98% of the models at are First Nations, Métis, and Inuit, and many of the event’s helping hands are Indigenous youth coming out of the foster care system. “The young women and men we work with, to mentor them in performance and creative production, it changes everything about their concept of themselves as belonging, as needed and wanted, as capable and as future leaders,” Mitton says.

Storytelling not only gives a voice to the sometimes very painful, marginalized personal experiences of Indigenous peoples in Canada, but is also an integral part of expressing and keeping Indigenous cultures themselves intact. To pair this with fashion is a powerful thing, says Mitton.

Each night is set to reflect different aspects of the Indigenous experience, including Coast Salish design, urban-Indigenous streetwear, and a Red Dress Event to honour the many missing and murdered Indigenous women. Closing night is called All My Relations, and is a cutting-edge, fantastical tribute to the power of ancestry, family, and grass-root mobilization within Indigenous communities.

“Every piece tells a story,” Mitton says. “It’s a continent of stories. We’re walking with meaning, walking with identity, heritage, family, spirit, and truth visible for all to see. Presenting ourselves with confidence and connection is almost contrary to our current anonymity.”

Fashion and history on display at Wentworth Home

ROLLINSFORD — A new summer exhibit at the Col. Paul Wentworth home provides a look at the way fashion has changed through the ages, from the 1800s through the 1900s.

Called “Fashionable Folks,” the exhibit centers on women and their fashion. Julia Roberts, President of the Board of Director for the historic home, said she finds it a fascinating look at a time that saw women through to their first efforts at declaring their independence and claiming their place in the world.

There are about 40 garments on display, everything from underwear to the various dress styles and shoes, depicting how they have changed over the years. The big message is how they became less restrictive as women became more active in their lives.

“Most of the clothing came from a family in the area who apparently never threw anything away, and we are thrilled for that,” said Roberts. “Through them, we were able to put together a pretty good representation.”

Even in the 1800s, Yankee frugality is easily seen in the repurposing of clothing.

“Women would choose to remake expensive fabrics,” said Roberts. “What was once a gown could become a petticoat. Trim from fancy bodices was saved and reused. Gowns were remade into something more fashionable for the times.”

Even underwear changed. Roberts said at first the underwear was intended to help shape whatever silhouette was popular at the time.

“They didn’t really wear panties,” said Roberts. “They had so many overcoats that it would have been impossible to pull anything down. Underwear was basically two legs attached to a waistband, open in the center so they could just squat. It was much later that they were sewn closed.”

When crinolines — hooped petticoats worn to make a long skirt stand out — became popular in the 1800s, so did hoop cages for skirts and bustles.

“The question most people ask is — how did they sit down,” said Roberts. “In reality, most of them were made to be collapsible. You couldn’t just stand all the time. Still, what we would do to be in fashion is pretty much anything.”

Giant puffy sleeves, big hooped skirts and corsets, all designed to make the waist look smaller, began to fade in popularity when women started showing an interest in sports, and when they began working during the war in unconventional jobs.

“It was during WWI times when women began to say, forget the corsets,” said Roberts. “They were starting to feel their freedom. They got the vote and they felt their worth.”

Hopeful Upstarts Kick Off Men’s Fashion Week in New York

There is a fledgling 19-year-old Nigerian-born designer who boasts of a nascent cult following in Japan; a Sudanese immigrant model discovered at his prom in Albany; a gay African-American Army veteran who pitched his spring 2018 men’s wear collection toward lightening the country’s mood.

A variety of ways present themselves of looking at New York Men’s Day, the opener of New York Fashion Week: Men’s. You can see it as the continuation of a seemingly unending loop of clothes going around in circles two months a year in cities like London, Milan or Paris. You can consider it a valiant, and possibly futile, effort on the part of the Council of Fashion Designers of America to reclaim its rightful place for American fashion on a global stage. You can view it as a commercial hodgepodge in search of a unifying tent-pole concept. Or you can think of it as another excuse for the click-baiting Instagram loons to break out the pink bunny slippers and harem pants.

Another possibility exists, however, and it is a hopeful one. No less in fashion than in other ostensibly more serious fields, people confused and alarmed by the current state of politics are resisting a new world order that looks to shut them out.

Designers have stories to tell about an America whose hijacked narrative they would like to reclaim. Even fashion design can do that, lest anyone forget.

Consider Taofeek Abijako, a young American of Nigerian ancestry who, though just out of high school, staged a startlingly sophisticated show of street wear inspired by post-colonial African clothing, the kind that might have been worn by the fashion-conscious young Malians featured in the classic studio portraits shot by Malike Sidibe or Seydou Keita in the 1960s.

“I’m interested in the way the natives adopted European styles and made them their own,” said Mr. Abijako, whose label is called Head of State. He quickly added, “I can say natives because I’m African.”

On a group of models cast on New York streets (or, in the case of the young Sudanese model Mohamed Ali Ibrahim, discovered by the designer at a prom) and with the kind of looks often excluded from mainstream fashion, Mr. Abijako showed 10 separate outfits that included oversize jackets, trousers and shorts and in colors that hewed to a limited palette of primary colors.

What made them interesting was the slightly off-kilter shape of trousers tailored close to the leg but then belted to look as though borrowed from an older brother or else the boxiness of zippered jackets that appeared to have been pulled from the bottom of a prop trunk.

The odd fits were intentional, the designer explained: “I like that aesthetic you see in the Sidibe portraits, where you know he put the sitters in clothes he had around the studio.”

If those natty clothes were occasionally ill fitting, the poses struck by Sidibe’s subjects, bright gazes fixed on a new African future, were prideful enough to bring anything they wore to life.

Julian Woodhouse, a former Army lieutenant who started the label Wood House, was one of the designers who returned to New York Men’s Day on Monday. “I called the collection Field Day, because I was feeling so heavy about political shifts,” Mr. Woodhouse said. “I wanted to show something shiny in a world of confusion.”

Seeking to inject a jolt of humor into a grim news cycle, he put models like Daje Barbour in colored shower-curtain mackintoshes or voluminous cargo shorts worn with suspenders left hanging or else overalls with pegged ankles and bibs cut low for efficiency of escape. There were also ball caps emblazoned with the slogan “Make Menswear Great Again.”

“We all need some humor right now,” Mr. Woodhouse said.

It is either that or yank the covers over your head, said David Hart, another of the designers featured at the morning presentation held at Dune Studios in the financial district.

“I’m kind of staying in my own world and my own bubble,” Mr. Hart said. Titled Tourism in Cuba, the collection’s design was undertaken before the Trump administration reversed President Barack Obama’s decision to ease restrictions on travel to that country. “I was planning to go with some friends,” he said, “and now I can’t.”

Hence he summoned an image of Cuban fashion as it might have appeared in the Batista years — one that, while at odds with the neon bling characteristic of contemporary Havana style, looked a good deal fresher than some of the literary hokum left behind by that island’s immortal literary expat, Papa Hemingway.

The hues of Mr. Hart’s smartly cut suits of linen or cotton woven by the storied Albini Group in Italy — styled with rolled cuffs and billowing pocket squares — shirt jackets fashioned after guayaberas and high-waisted pleated trousers were a riff on the candy-color ’50s Chevrolets still seen tootling along the Malecon. What gave the David Hart collection an edge was the subtlety of the designer’s tonal color selections — palest banana; faded ocher; mint green; Necco-wafer pink.

It is his ability to refresh a weary design trope like Cuban tropicalia that, one imagines, might recommend Mr. Hart to one of those great American brands now casting about for a design talent to steer a course back toward profitability and relevance.

Camille Styles Shares Her Summer Party Secrets

WHEN I HEARD THAT TEXAS TASTEMAKER CAMILLE STYLES was heading to Houston to throw a summer-ready shindig with the help of Target, I was all in. The event-planner-turned-lifestyle-guru’s site is all about #partygoals, so I knew it would be an amazing event. True to form, I sampled cones full of fresh fruit in patriotic colors and star-shaped bites of grilled cheese, geeked out over the twee ice-cream-shaped strung lights and watched the parade of kiddos get airbrushed tattoos of summer foods before sitting down with Styles to get her thoughts on how anyone can throw an easy, Instagram-ready party without breaking the bank.

Tell me about how this collaboration with Target came together?

It’s been such a wonderful partnership. For one, I’ve been a Target shopper all my life. I love Target. For me its the perfect merging of style and accessibility, which is something that my brand is always trying to do, to make style something that everyone has access to. To me that’s what Target really is all about.

The other thing is I have two kids, and especially as a mom I’m so busy. To be able to get a great outfit for Phoebe and myself, all of our party supplies, food and drinks for the party, stop and get a lipstick, just to get everything I need in one place is huge.

For me the partnership has been such a dream because it just feels so organic. I love to be able to incorporate all of the new collections into the parties we’re designing—so far on the site we’ve done a spring Easter brunch using all Target’s spring home collections, which was really beautiful and kind of girly, and then we just did our backyard barbecue that was really festive and fun and gave me so many great ideas for the Fourth of July barbecue I’m about to hold at my house.

What’s the aisle at Target that you can’t resist every time you pop in?

I have so much Threshold in my own home, so for me I can’t walk down the aisle of the Threshold collection without finding something new that I didn’t know I needed, whether it’s serving pieces or throw pillows or outdoor rugs. This summer I’m really loving the Poptimism collection that Target just launched, too. It’s full of outdoor entertaining must-haves and you’ll see so many of them at this party, from all the cute, festive disposable festive plates and serve ware to the string lights that are all kinds of fun motifs. For the party today we’ve taken some of these iconic summer symbols of the Poptimism collection that Target’s designers created and blown them up into these huge backdrops around the party.

What I love about your parties on the site is that they always seem really fun, not like you’re working hard.

I refuse to be away from the party in the kitchen. I want to be having fun with my guests. So one thing that Target and myself are trying to do is really inspire people with how easy and affordable it can be to throw a great party. I think so many people are intimidated by the idea of hosting in their home because they think it’s going to be tons of work or really expensive or both and it absolutely doesn’t have to be.

At the backyard barbecue, we used all disposable dishes, which in the Poptimism collection adds such a fun element. I think people used to think they were sacrificing style if they went with disposables, but when you have this well-designed collection and these cute prints it actually becomes one of the cutest parts of the party. And then the best part is you can just throw it away at the end.

What are some of your go-to recipes to impress guests without feeling that stress and pressure of trying to cook while everyone else is relaxing?

With my background, a lot of what I learned was tips and tricks for planning a menu that can be prepared well in advance of guests arriving, so at the last minute you’re not standing over the stove. In the summertime I love grilling everything. It’s such an easy way to not even turn on the oven and heat up the kitchen, clean up is a breeze because you’re just serving everyone off the grill, and it’s fun and delicious.

For the barbecue we did chicken and veggie fajitas, which is definitely a summertime staple around our house. But we grill pizzas, we grill fish tacos. And then we just serve it at the table. For me that’s one of the things that makes summer entertaining a snap. People shouldn’t feel like it requires weeks and weeks of planning to have people over for a casual, spontaneous get-together, but you can still add in a few cute, well-designed pieces to make it feel like a party.

I am a huge fan in the summer, of either family-style service or putting the food right in the middle of the table on big, beautiful serving pieces—and then that becomes a décor element as well. Beautiful food is one of the best centerpieces, I think. Or setting up a great buffet, which is what I’m doing for the Fourth. Just being able to set up the food in a pretty way and let people serve themselves ... It makes things really casual and fun.

What’s a party element that most people overlook?

I would say lighting. I think that lighting at an outdoor party in the summertime is the easiest, most inexpensive way to make it feel so magical. Whether it’s stringing up some beautiful string lights or placing a couple great lanterns, votive candles. It doesn’t take a lot of effort but it really transforms a backyard space.

And the big question: How do you plan a party where both the kids and the adults will be entertained?

I’ve learned so much since I had Phoebe a few years ago! I used to never give it a second thought but it really is true that when you have families over you want some kind of activity to keep the kids busy and having fun so the adults can actually have a conversation. I love lawn games in the summer ... over here we have this fun cornhole game, and Target has some really fun lawn games, like badminton. We also threw a bunch of hula hoops in the yard, which is very little effort but it kept the kids entertained for hours. Even throwing some beach balls out in the yard, getting a little creative.

How do you come up with a fun theme for your events?

I think it’s just finding something simple. For the backyard barbecue we used the watermelon motif from the Poptimism plates as our launching pad so I think it’s rally fun to get inspired by summer fruit. You can also choose something that’s an activity at the party, like our snow cone stand. It’s such a fun theme that you can repeat as a motif throughout. We just bought a snow cone machine from Target, the Cuisinart, it’s bright red, you can make homemade syrups, everyone can choose their favorite flavors, the adults can spike them with alcohol. It’s a really fun summer activity for kids and adults.

Ebonee Davis and Brandice Daniel Come Together For a Powerful Discussion About Fashion Diversity

Model Ebonee Davis and Harlem's Fashion Row founder Brandice Daniel are leading the charge for a more diverse fashion industry. And yesterday (July 1), both women stopped by the 2017 ESSENCE Festival Beauty & Style stage to discuss exactly how they've overcome specific challenges in their respective careers.

Davis, who was recently featured in the Pantene Gold Series campaign, spoke out about the trouble she had getting signed as a Black model and the “Eurocentric beauty standards” that are glorified by the fashion industry.

“I was straightening my hair because they said that I couldn’t wear natural hair,” said Davis. “I was wearing weaves because they said that was the standard of beauty that I had to subscribe to -the Eurocentric standard. Ultimately, telling me that the way I was born isn’t beautiful and it isn’t good enough.”

The struggle for representation isn’t just with models, but designers as well. Brandice Daniel, wants to give Black designers a space to be seen.

“We’re spending 22 billion a year on apparel…but less than 1% of [black designers] are represented in department stores,” said Daniel, who began Harlem's Fashion Row in 2007. “That lit a fire under me.”

That flame grew into a organization that puts on packed out events and celebrates designers and celebrities that contribute to Black fashion.

“I want designers that put in the work.,” she continued. "Those who really have a different point of view and an amazing collection or aesthetic - I want them to be seen.”

Utilizing their platforms to make change, both ladies will continue to not only shine light on the fashion industry's diversity issues, but create opportunities for others as well.

“Who are our role models… if all of the successful Black women in my industry are being removed from the culture,” said Davis. “I have had the opportunity to amplify my message, amplify my voice. I want people to know is that no mater who are, no matter where you come from, not matter what you look like you’re beautiful.”