“To me, Indigenous fashion is a medium where we are able to bring our entire selves, both as creatives and as Indigenous people, into our work and share the specificity and uniqueness of what it means to be members of our respective nations today,” says high fashion designer Evan Ducharme. His work explores Métis history and cultural iconography, subverting colonial notions of gender, queerness and relations to place. He creates elegant designs that apply ancestral and contemporary Métis knowledge to affirm a contemporary representation of Indigenous peoples within the fashion medium.
Model: Katlyn Ducharme Photographer: Larissa Chartrand Hair: Paige Ricard
“A lot has happened [in the last few years],” says Ducharme. “I’ve had the opportunity to attend Milan Fashion Week with Indigenous Fashion Arts as an exhibitor in the WHITE Tradeshow. I’ve also begun to expand my work into costume design.” In the fall of 2023, he acted as Cultural Consultant in the costume department for the world premiere of Li Keur: Riel’s Heart of the North by Dr. Suzanne Steele at the Manitoba Opera, the first full-scale Indigenous-led opera presented on a Canadian opera mainstage. He’s also had a piece from his archive featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition In America: A Lexicon of Fashion.
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