Where are all the Indigenous fashion models? – NOW Magazine

When Lesley Hampton went to cast her Toronto Fashion Week show, modelling agencies didn’t have enough Indigenous models to fulfil her request

February 11, 2019

After fashion editors and style influencers were seated at the Gardiner Museum on February 6, Juno-nominated singer Iskwe emerged to kick off designer Lesley Hampton’s Toronto Fashion Week debut, encouraging the crowd to sing along to the Ojibwe refrain from her track The Unforgiven.

The musical performance was just one element of a show that Hampton says was “centred around the Indigenous story of identity and Indigeneity.” The collection’s name, Eighteen Seventy Six, was the year the Indian Act was enacted in Canada, and the deliberate choices of blue and red for the evening dresses, symbolized residential schools and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, respectively.

Read More: https://nowtoronto.com/lifestyle/indigenous-representation-toronto-fashion-week/