Southcentre Mall highlights Indigenous fashion for National Indigenous History month

Southcentre Mall is celebrating National Indigenous History Month with an installation featuring Indigenous fashion designers.

Southcentre Mall is putting the spotlight on Indigenous style with a cultural display, fashion show and market.

All of the events will happen in the mall’s centre court in June in celebration of National Indigenous History month.

They’re organized by Authentically Indigenous, a local group founded by sisters Autumn and Melrene Saloy-EagleSpeaker that focusses on Indigenous creativity, arts and culture.

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Melrene says the mall’s cultural display will have 10 outfits created by Indigenous designers.

“Our Indigenous designers, our Inuit designers, all have amazing stories of their heritage and their culture and their blood memory that they want to share with the world,” she said.

“What we do is, we take these traditions and colors and patterns, and we incorporate it in today’s fashion using modern elements of using sewing machines and other amazing things.”

Melrene says all the designers incorporate old and new elements to make something interesting and fresh.

“It’s an amazing step in reconciliation,” she said. “Sometimes culturally based events and things can be a little intimidating, and fashion is an amazing opener. We’re able to open up dialog and talk about our stories and where we come from, and to see what we’ve been doing for so long and the amazing people we are today.”

Melrene is also a designer who shows her garments on runways around the world and uses traditional items like sage and sweetgrass in her work.

She says for her, designing is her own personal medicine, and she enjoys creating and showing pieces that her uniquely hers.

“It’s kind of my way of saying that I’m a Blackfoot artist, of where I come from in the traditional sense, that’s inside my pieces.”

Risa Fritz just opened the Brass Buffalo Trading Post and Gallery in Longview, Alta., south of Calgary.

She says her style is a blend of her Indigenous culture with western cowboy lifestyle, something she’s excited to show off.

“I’ve sat quietly at home doing alterations and hiding my talent and not pursuing my dreams,” she said. “So, this opportunity is huge for me. I’m so excited to be a part of this and I’m looking forward to showing people my work.”

Fritz says she takes from her Metis background and incorporates beadwork into buffalo and elk hide to create wearable art.

“It means so much to me to piece things that are from the land, from the culture, things that I have got from my family,” she said. “Maybe my family has had a hand in harvesting the animal or creating the antler or the hides… and then blending it with my ideas or my vision of what I see for the piece.”

The cultural display will run from June 1 to 23.

The Indigenous Artisan Market will take place on Friday, June 6 and Saturday, June 7.

The fashion show, called Rez in the City 2.0, will be held from 8 to 10 p.m. on June 22. Tickets are available for purchase online through Show Pass.