One of Canada’s most exciting fashion designers is bringing light back to the beauty, culture and struggles of Indigenous people.
Indigenous communities have long been hidden from Canadian society, especially within history. One of the darkest parts was the use of Residential Schools in the destruction of Indigenous individuals, communities, and cultures. However, one fashion designer who is bringing light back to the beauty, culture and struggles of Indigenous people is Lesley Hampton.
Lesley Hampton is an Indigenous fashion designer from the Anishinaabe and Mohawk heritage. She is a “third culture kid” who had grown up with a global perspective from having lived in Canada's Arctic and Atlantic, Australia, England, Indonesia, and New Caledonia. Currently, she is based in Toronto.
Her core foundations are inclusivity, identity, awareness, and heritage. She has used her elegant and strong eveningwear to showcase diverse bodies and representations, especially from the Indigenous community. She is frequently casting Aboriginal models and partnering with other Indigenous creatives to spotlight their culture and crafts.
Lainey Lui at the Golden Globe 2020 wearing a gown designed by Lesley Hampton (source).
A major spotlight was during the Golden Globes 2020 when Canadian television personality Lainey Lui wore Hampton’s couture gown to the red carpets. Lui is an anchor for CTV’s etalk and a co-host for CTV’s The Social. This stunning exposure garnered the attention of many major news outlets such as Vogue, Buzzfeed, and The Telegraph, listing Lui as one of the Best Dressed of the night.
The dress that inspired Lainey Lui's Golden Globe gown from Lesley Hampton's Spring/Summer 2020 runway collection, The Preface (source).
The dress was a striking pink, graphic, pleated gown with cutouts on the waist and a dramatic cape. It was inspired by her knee-length version shown during her Spring/Summer 2020 collection called The Preface.
This collection is inspired by the idea of healing, rising from darkness, away from mental torment and the desire to become stronger as a whole. It infuses colour therapy to promote calmness and confidence to the wearer through light colours and romantic cuts on the clothing.
Most importantly, this collection is dedicated to the memory of all missing and murdered Métis, First Nations and Inuit women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA people - thus, it was named after The Preface from Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. This report had determined that Canada has experienced deliberate race, identity and gender-based genocide.
“We must know our past, understand it and accept it, if the future is to have meaning.”
- Commissioner Michèle Audette, Canadian Politician and Native Canadian Activist, The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women: Reclaiming Power and Place, 2019.
This quote from the preface of The Final Report was the opening line to her Spring/Summer 2020 fashion show, The Preface.
Hampton is currently nominated for a Fashion Impact Award by CAFA 2020 and has transitioned her studio for face mask production due to the pandemic. If you would like to learn more about Lesley Hampton, watch her interview with Marilyn Denis and follow her Instagram.
A blog post by Jimmy Phung.
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