At an Arctic conference, Indigenous fashion gets a moment in the spotlight

The Far North Fashion Show at last week’s Arctic Encounter Symposium in Alaska highlighted innovative Alaska Native designers.

By Yereth Rosen April 15, 2022

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Keegan Richards models a full-length traditional parka designed by Bobby Itta, an Inupiaq fashion artist and furrier from Utqiagvik. Bobby Itta owns Arctic Luxe, a brand that promotes and sells handmade Indigenous clothing and accessories. She showed some of her in February at New York Fashion Week. (Yereth Rosen)

Angela Peacock models a design by Clara Qaulluq McConnell, an Inupiaq artist and designer from Kotzebue. (Yereth Rosen)

Kristina Woolston, who grew up in the Bristol Bay village of Naknek, kicked off the show by introducing the models and designers. (Yereth Rosen)

Corinne Danner, an Inupiaq language teacher and accomplished sewer from Utqiagvik, models one of her creations. She has a business, Qypak by Corrine, to sell her work. (Yereth Rosen)

Corinne Danner, an Inupiaq language teacher and accomplished sewer from Utqiagvik, models another of her creations. (Yereth Rosen)

Designer Clara Qaulluq McConnell of Kotzebue, model Cinq Devine wearing one of McConnell’s designs, model Angela Peacock also in one of McConnell’s designs, model Holly Lee in wearing one of Bobby Itta’s designs (left to right). (Yereth Rosen)

Designer Clara Qaulluq McConnel, model Cinq Devine wearing one of McConnell’s designs, model Angela Peacock wearing one of McConnell’s designs, model Crystal Toolie wearing one of Bobby Itta’s designs, designer Bobby Itta, Holly Lee modeling one of Itta’s designs (left to right). (Yereth Rosen)

Indigenous tradition met with high fashion at last week’s Arctic Encounter Symposium. The symposium’s Far North Fashion Show held at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art drew hundreds of spectators and highlighted Arctic entrepreneurship and adaptations of ancient tradition into contemporary products.

Works shown were from experienced Indigenous designers, some with businesses that market their products regionally and nationally. Among those businesses are Arctic Luxe, owned by Bobby Itta from Utqiagvik, who showcased some of her tradition-influenced contemporary products at February’s New York Fashion Week; and Sew Sassy Qaspeqs, owned by Sassa Peterson, who lives in the Kenai Peninsula city of Soldotna but is from the Yup’ik village of Manokotak.

Some of the designers modeled their own creations on the red-carpet catwalk.

And some of the creations carried messages.

Those message-bearing works included the mixed-media cape created by Ruth Łchav’aya K’isen Miller that draws attention to the abused, missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Alaska and elsewhere.

“It came to me in a dream,” she said about her design. It was important to highlight the human cost of extractive capitalism during a conference that placed a lot of focus on resource development, Miller said.

At an Arctic conference, Indigenous fashion gets a moment in the spotlight

The Far North Fashion Show at last week’s Arctic Encounter Symposium in Alaska highlighted innovative Alaska Native designers.

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