April Allen in Times Square, New York City.Supplied
Backstage at Sony Hall in New York, April Allen felt a rush of nervousness. As the lights dimmed, she stood wearing red trimmed boots with wool pom poms made by her late mother. She was at New York Fashion Week, about to present her designs in front of some of the world’s most elite fashion observers, representing not just herself, but her community, ancestors and culture.
Most of the models in her February show were from her own traditional Inuit region – Nunatsiavut, which means “our beautiful land” in Inuttitut, in Newfoundland and Labrador. They stood around her, dressed in caribou fur skirts, sealskin vests with applique blossoms and fox fur-trimmed boots glistening with beadwork. Allen crafted these designs using the same skills and traditional materials her mother and grandmother did, but with a sexy modern edge. She watched as the models strut onto the catwalk, wearing “a piece of our rich history.”
The audience was riveted, many holding up phones to record the show. The screen behind the runway was filled with drone footage, shot by her cousin (Bird’s Eye Inc.), of Rigolet and area: the cabin where Allen spent her summers, the rolling scrubland, seals swimming in the North Atlantic, along with photos of her mother, Joice Allen, and grandmothers Elizabeth Tooktoshina and Blanche Allen, set to music from Inuit singers Deantha Edmunds, Beatrice Deer and Piqsiq.
“It was so heartwarming. Just so oh my goodness,” said Allen, 42. “It was a statement that our culture is not only relevant but is also deserving of recognition and celebration on a global stage.”
Allen crafted these designs using the same skills and traditional materials her mother and grandmother did, but with a sexy modern edge.vic fashion photography/Supplied
It was a long way from where she was a few years back, diagnosed with multiple chemical sensitivity that forced her to resign as a dental therapist in North Battleford, Sask., and move home to Labrador City, a town in western Labrador near the Quebec border, with her son and daughter. Allen recalls feeling directionless and depressed as she tried out several odd jobs around that time in 2013.
To pass the time, she began sewing and beading, skills her mother had taught her as a child. It was an automatic skill, “blood memory” or knowledge that she naturally possessed from her ancestors. She found it brought small beats of joy. A feeling of connectedness.
When she hit a snare she sought advice from other Inuit sewers and her mom, who died last May.
Allen started feeling lighter. Soon her living room was covered in tufts of fox fur, sealskin trimmings and colourful trays of beads. The small enterprise she’d launched in January, 2020, Stitched by April, was starting to get noticed. Before long, she was invited to Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week and flew there to show her garments in September, 2023.
An e-mail came soon after, inviting her to Runway 7, a New York Fashion Week show run by a production company that focuses on cultural diversity.
It was a mad rush to prepare. While Allen focused on sewing and beading, friends, cousins, her daughter, set about making it happen.
Local businesses, an Indigenous airline, family and friends rallied to help, sponsoring Allen to help cover the $10,000 cost of registering, travel and hotel for the week. Five young women from Nunatsiavut, including her daughter, Julia Allen, volunteered to model.
vic fashion photography/Supplied
At the moment, Allen sews with commercially tanned hides and pelts, which are easier to access.vic fashion photography/Supplied
In New York, Allen recalled standing with her friends and daughter in the middle of Times Square, her first time there, and seeing her designs illuminated on a rotating billboard promoting fashion week. “It was such an empowering feeling. It was like ‘Wow, I’m in New York! We’re in New York!’ It was absolutely amazing,” she said.
The night before the show, Allen decided she had to sew one more dress. She rushed out of her hotel room and bought a cheap sewing machine, cutting and stitching through the night to produce a simple leather sheath dress. It was ultimately worn by Irish-Oglala Lakota model Skylar Evans, showcasing Allen’s bold statement necklace of sealskin blossoms edged in emerald crystals with caribou tufting and a pair of above-the-knee fox fur trimmed boots.
Allen plans to soon start harvesting and cleaning her own seal pelts, something she watched her mother do in Rigolet at their summer cabin when she was a child.vic fashion photography/Supplied
On the catwalk, her daughter wore a traditional purple Silapâk, (Inuttitut for the outermost layer of clothing that you pull over) and a pair of black fur trimmed boots with moose hide soles made by her grandmother – a way to honour the skills and craft of the women in Allen’s family, whom she learned from.
At the moment, Allen sews with commercially tanned hides and pelts, which are easier to access. But she plans to soon start harvesting and cleaning her own seal pelts, something she watched her mother do in Rigolet at their summer cabin when she was a child.
Back home in Labrador City, she’s been trying to rest up and prepare for Paris Fashion Week in September. As she cuts and sews in her living room she thinks about her mother, how her ancestors did this for thousands of years and how she herself has sewed all her life. “I take my time. Like my mom said, ‘If you don’t do it right, take it all apart and do it again.’” She still runs her online shop and Instagram site, updating it with news, like the collaboration with actress Kali Reis, who wore her signature earrings and handcrafted boots, and designer Kayla Lookinghorse, a member of Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
But it seems there’s never enough time to hand sew all the designs swirling around in her head. She often lies awake in bed under the dark Labrador sky, dreaming of all the beautiful things she wants to make.
“It saved me,” she said, about her new-found career sewing and beading. “It reconnected me with my culture and our ways.”