{"id":5333,"date":"2020-12-03T16:20:05","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T21:20:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/News\/?p=5333"},"modified":"2020-12-03T16:30:03","modified_gmt":"2020-12-03T21:30:03","slug":"the-conversation-indigenous-fashion-designers-showcase-resistance-and-resurgence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2020\/12\/03\/the-conversation-indigenous-fashion-designers-showcase-resistance-and-resurgence\/","title":{"rendered":"The Conversation: Indigenous fashion designers showcase resistance and resurgence"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\n\t\t\t2020 IFWTO Trailer\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t
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Experience. Expression. Exchange.Indigenous Fashion Week TorontoNovember 26 – 29, 2020 at IFWtoronto.com.A four-day online fashion festival of runway films, …<\/p>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t

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Indigenous Fashion Week Toronto: Experience. Expression. Exchange. IFWTO 2020<\/a>\r\n<\/figcaption>\r\n
Indigenous Fashion Week Toronto designers are showcasing resistance and resurgence<\/div>\r\n
Thursday, December 3, 2020<\/div>\r\n
By Riley Kucheran<\/a> (Ryerson University<\/a>) and Alysia Myette<\/a> (Ryerson University<\/a>)<\/div>\r\n
The Conversation<\/div>\r\n
theconversation.com<\/A><\/div>\r\n

<\/P>\r\nThis past weekend, the biennial Indigenous Fashion Week Toronto<\/a> (IFWTO) took the virtual fashion world by storm. \r\n

<\/P>\r\nOver four days, the festival showcased 15 designers who presented creative and artistic runway shows<\/a> that underscored our interconnection to water. This year also marked the launch of a virtual marketplace that sold out in a matter of hours.

<\/P>\r\n\r\nThe event ran alongside a symposium \u2014 Fashioning Resurgence \u2014 in collaboration with Ryerson University\u2019s School of Fashion, which hosted live and recorded panels on the Indigenous Fashion movement. Nine conversations shared ideas from within the Indigenous fashion movement, while welcoming others into the dialogue by offering diverse perspectives on a series of provocations. Themes included land-based fashion, colours, materials and symbols, Indigenous Fashion Education and the next generation. It also included masterclasses on branding, communications and collaborating with the mainstream fashion industry.

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Indigenous Fashion Week Toronto showcased 15 designers, including the Vancouver-based N\u0113hiyaw streetwear brand, Section 35. The collection \u2018Miyo Pimatisiwin\u2019 merges art and fashion to empower, educate and bring people together. (Section 35 \u2013 IFWTO), Author provided\r\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nAt the inaugural IFWTO in 2018,<\/a> we saw early signs of how Indigenous fashion and its platforms differ from the mainstream industry. A banner insisting that stolen land be returned in reconciliation was unfurled at the opening night party. Runways honoured regalia makers and matriarchs. Designs spoke against resource extraction and drew attention to the interconnectedness of caribou, fashion and sovereignty. A front row was reserved for Elders.

<\/P>\r\n\r\nAt that first event, we saw that Indigenous fashion, when grounded in community ethics and ancestral values, is innately political, inherently sustainable and socially responsible. Since 2018, the Indigenous fashion movement has continued to grow, with new entrepreneurship incubators<\/a> and big-name collaborations with retailers like Simons<\/a> helping designers grow their brands.

<\/P>\r\n\r\nPerhaps most importantly, the scope of conversations about Indigenous fashion has widened, and increasingly diverse voices are imagining and shaping where this movement takes us.

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Beading circle discussions centered beadwork and fashion as both resistance and resurgence in a virtual panel hosted by Justine Woods (M\u00e9tis, Canada). (Justine Woods), Author provided\r\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n
Knowledge sharing<\/div>\r\n\r\nIndigenous designers engage daily in the tasks of translating Indigenous worldviews and practices. This is partly what makes our fashion so revolutionary. Perhaps the most succinct example of this is Section 35<\/a>, a brand named for the section of the Indian Act that has so profoundly shaped Indigenous life in Canada. Others, like Evan Ducharme<\/a>, spoke to the ongoing struggle for M\u00e9tis rights with his reworked \u201ccensus print\u201d which listed Ducharme\u2019s maternal great-grandfather, James Lavallee, as \u201cFrench\u201d before it was was scratched out and replaced with \u201cIndian.\u201d

<\/P>\r\n\r\nWhat sets Indigenous fashion apart are these stories and teachings embedded in the design, and the sustainable production systems that Indigenous communities mobilize to create Indigenous material culture. Articulating this significance is difficult on a fashion runway or in a photographic campaign. The immediacy of fashion\u2019s visual culture must be combined with Indigenous stories. These challenges were discussed in the symposium.

<\/P>\r\n\r\nBoth the branding and communications panel and the panel on Indigenous fashion journalism discussed the importance of educating consumers. Creative consultants Andrew and Ian Foxall<\/a> and journalism professors Candis Callison and Duncan McCue hinted that educating consumers is not just a task for brands, it\u2019s a project for the movement itself.

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Celeste Pedri-Spade\u2019s collection, Material Kwe (Anishinabe, Canada), shown at IFWTO. The collection was featured as part of the day four Tu Gh\u2019el T\u2019ilhn\/\/Water Carriers runway event. (Material Kwe), Author provided\r\n<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
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The garment is part of the PROGENY series by Evan Ducharme which is an observation of transgenerational love. Author provided\r\n<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\r\n
Better reporting on Indigenous fashion is needed<\/div>\r\n\r\nMore depth and nuance is needed when reporting on Indigenous fashion.

<\/P>\r\n\r\nThe panel series was created to provide the cultural and historical contexts that situate Indigenous fashion. Indigenous designers and creators are engaged in resistance to systems of colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy and white supremacy, and a resurgence of the relations and practices that provide us with alternatives.

<\/P>\r\n\r\nThe second goal of the symposium was to initiate dialogue, without pretending to provide \u201canswers.\u201d The series began with questions: What does Land mean to you? How does Indigenous fashion support communities? How does Indigenous materiality convey meaning? How can \u201cmainstream\u201d brands respectfully collaborate with Indigenous designers? \r\n

<\/P>\r\nHow should Indigenous designers be representing themselves? How can fashion, craft and textiles be rendered in a virtual world? What\u2019s the tea on that Christi Belcourt x Valentino<\/a> collection? How do beading circles support resurgence? How can fashion schools support Indigenous sovereignty?

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Designer Curtis Oland\u2019s collection \u2018Delicate Tissue\u2019 represents the precarious and sometimes volatile relationships we share with the Land, and with one another. The collection was featured as part of the day three Tu Gh\u2019eg Tl\u2019e\u2019th\/\/Streams runway event. (Curtis Oland)\r\n<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
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Beaded earrings by multidisciplinary artist and jeweler Catherine Blackburn (Dene, Canada). These and other designs were featured at the IFWTO market which sold out in mere hours. (Catherine Blackburn), Author provided\r\n<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nThe conversations pinpointed some important directions that Indigenous fashion needs to move towards: Body and gender inclusivity. Communal production and tighter control of the supply chain. Knowledge sharing between Elders and Indigenous youth. Slow-moving relationship building and consensus before action. Land back.

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\r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n Read more:\r\n Indigenous Fashion Week Toronto is healing and resurgence in action<\/a>\r\n <\/strong>\r\n <\/em>\r\n

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\r\n\r\n\r\nAll runway and panel videos are available on the IFWTO YouTube page<\/a>. Next, the team plans to transcribe these conversations and work with panel participants to edit and expand their ideas for publication in the open-source Fashion Studies<\/a> journal. Participants will also identify avenues for future conversations.

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Imagining futures<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\nIndigenous fashion is a critical medium because of its potential to enable representational sovereignty, or the ability to fashion our own stories against dominant narratives.

<\/P>\r\n\r\nDesigners refute visual stereotypes with a future that requires looking back to ancestral Indigenous identities and clothing practices. Indigenous Fashion Week Toronto is a key supporter in exercising that sovereignty by providing a platform for designers.

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