Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week provides inspiration
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E-mail Xinhua, July 28, 2017
VANCOUVER, July 27 (Xinhua) -- The first annual Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week (VIFW) kicked off Wednesday at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, a performing arts venue in the Canadian city of Vancouver, and is expected to raise the profile of young indigenous people.
Nearly 60 First Nations (the predominant aboriginal peoples of Canada south of the Arctic) designers and models gathered for the inaugural VIFW in Vancouver on July 26.
Former international model Joleen Mitton organized the event. She told Xinhua that she found the indigenous fashion industry very underdevelopped when working in Asia.
"I wanted to get to know my culture a bit so I flew back...come back to Vancouver," she said in an interview at the theatre.
She wanted to do a show to present First Nations culture and fashion to Canada and the world. "Nobody was doing it," she said.
Most of the designers in the show are Mitton's former acquaintances, and many models have taken part in a youth mentorship program that Mitton works with.
Mitton wants to help young people discover their cultural identities.
The show will also create business opportunities for the designers and models, she said.
The event has become a major inspiration, said First Nations designer Jill Setah, who showed her own works on Thursday evening.
Setah has been a designer for several years. "I love designing," she said.
She intends to organize a similar show in the Okanagan Valley where she lives, a region in the province of British Columbia. "This one is right up there with some other shows that I've done in the past," she said.
The VIFW continues on Friday and Saturday. Enditem
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