Designer Spotlight: Sage Paul
By Zaria Franklin
Fashion designer, Sage Paul, is an urban Denesuliné tskwe (“woman” in Dene) and a member of English River First Nation. Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, Paul learned how to sew from her mother and other women in her community to create Indigenous designs. This comes as no surprise, seeing as a common theme in her pieces are family, balance, and sovereignty. However, Paul had not always planned to be in the fashion world. She “didn’t see an access point for [herself]. It’s all been about profits, all about getting the trendiest things. And that’s what we saw for a really long time.” Regardless of this setback, Paul has persevered as a designer. In doing so, Paul has created a space for Indigenous brands and designers to showcase work, be connected with consumers and other businesses, and find support. COnsequently, Paul’s legacy has already been cemented as representative of Indigenous culture within fashion as well as the talent of indigenous designers.
Paul graduated from George Brown College in Toronto for fashion design, where she now teaches a fashion course of her own creation. During her time at George Brown, Paul began working with the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, which is an organization that celebrates Indigenous artists. She produced her first collection in 2011, before co-founding the Indigenous Fashion Week Toronto (IFWTO) in 2016. IFWTO manages runways, exhibitions, panels, lectures, workshops, and markets. As of 2021, it is now a nonprofit under the name of Indigenous Fashion Arts, in which Paul is the executive and artistic director for. In 2022, 25 designers presented work on the runway and over 60 had exhibitions.
However, Paul’s impressive resume does not stop there. She presented the collection “Giving Life” at the Festival de Mode & Design in Montréal and Ohtaapiahki Fashion Week in Calgary. She aided a capsule collection that featured eight Indigenous labels and the Quebec retailer Simons. The Art Gallery of Ontario’s First Thursday, Harbourfront Centre, The Centre for Craft, Creativity and Design (North Carolina, USA), and a curated program at Western Canada Fashion Week by Ociciwan Contemporary Art Collective have all exhibited her designs. She’s designed costumes for the likes of Kent Monkman, Darlene Naponse, and Danis Goulet. Her accolades include sitting on the Ryerson School of Fashion Advisory Board and the Board of Directors for Red Pepper Spectacle Art and receiving the Design Exchange RBC Emerging Designer Award and the Ontario Minister of the Status of Women as a trailblazing woman who is transforming Ontario.
What’s perhaps most striking about Paul as a designer is her dedication to Indigenous representation and advocacy. Specifically, the designer has made it a part of her mission to uplift Indigenous designers and culture within fashion. She’s spoken about such matters at Canada House (London, UK), The Walrus Magazine, Ryerson University, Toronto Women’s Fashion Week and South Africa Fashion Week. Most recently, Paul has played a crucial role in cementing a three-year partnership between White Milano and the IFA Trade Program. This unprecedented collaboration places Indigenous artists at the forefront of fashion on a global scale. A selection of designers, both those who are market-ready and building experience, hold panel discussions, conduct runway shows, and network events. Often, the panel discussions focus on discussing cultural appropriation and Indigenous representation in fashion.
It’s events like this that ensure that the fashion industry is conscientious of its cultural impact. Furthermore, this representation not only serves an educational sphere for the fashion industry, but it also provides opportunities for and encourages younger generations of designers that are a part of Indigenous communities. Sage Paul has openly utilized her platform to ensure this, which she talks about in an interview with Nuvo Magazine:
“I just want to make sure that in the future, people who are in kindergarten now, 20 years from now they’re going to leave school and have a place to do fashion,” she says. Paul plans to return to fashion design herself in five to 10 years. “There’s just so much more of an opportunity to be able to live off of the work and off of traditional ways of doing things, whether that’s in the way that we’re harvesting or weaving materials, and the way that we’re designing patterns and the cultural codes that are on the clothing…I feel like the industry has just been cracked open.”
Paul graduated from George Brown College in Toronto for fashion design, where she now teaches a fashion course of her own creation. During her time at George Brown, Paul began working with the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, which is an organization that celebrates Indigenous artists. She produced her first collection in 2011, before co-founding the Indigenous Fashion Week Toronto (IFWTO) in 2016. IFWTO manages runways, exhibitions, panels, lectures, workshops, and markets. As of 2021, it is now a nonprofit under the name of Indigenous Fashion Arts, in which Paul is the executive and artistic director for. In 2022, 25 designers presented work on the runway and over 60 had exhibitions.
However, Paul’s impressive resume does not stop there. She presented the collection “Giving Life” at the Festival de Mode & Design in Montréal and Ohtaapiahki Fashion Week in Calgary. She aided a capsule collection that featured eight Indigenous labels and the Quebec retailer Simons. The Art Gallery of Ontario’s First Thursday, Harbourfront Centre, The Centre for Craft, Creativity and Design (North Carolina, USA), and a curated program at Western Canada Fashion Week by Ociciwan Contemporary Art Collective have all exhibited her designs. She’s designed costumes for the likes of Kent Monkman, Darlene Naponse, and Danis Goulet. Her accolades include sitting on the Ryerson School of Fashion Advisory Board and the Board of Directors for Red Pepper Spectacle Art and receiving the Design Exchange RBC Emerging Designer Award and the Ontario Minister of the Status of Women as a trailblazing woman who is transforming Ontario.
What’s perhaps most striking about Paul as a designer is her dedication to Indigenous representation and advocacy. Specifically, the designer has made it a part of her mission to uplift Indigenous designers and culture within fashion. She’s spoken about such matters at Canada House (London, UK), The Walrus Magazine, Ryerson University, Toronto Women’s Fashion Week and South Africa Fashion Week. Most recently, Paul has played a crucial role in cementing a three-year partnership between White Milano and the IFA Trade Program. This unprecedented collaboration places Indigenous artists at the forefront of fashion on a global scale. A selection of designers, both those who are market-ready and building experience, hold panel discussions, conduct runway shows, and network events. Often, the panel discussions focus on discussing cultural appropriation and Indigenous representation in fashion.
It’s events like this that ensure that the fashion industry is conscientious of its cultural impact. Furthermore, this representation not only serves an educational sphere for the fashion industry, but it also provides opportunities for and encourages younger generations of designers that are a part of Indigenous communities. Sage Paul has openly utilized her platform to ensure this, which she talks about in an interview with Nuvo Magazine:
“I just want to make sure that in the future, people who are in kindergarten now, 20 years from now they’re going to leave school and have a place to do fashion,” she says. Paul plans to return to fashion design herself in five to 10 years. “There’s just so much more of an opportunity to be able to live off of the work and off of traditional ways of doing things, whether that’s in the way that we’re harvesting or weaving materials, and the way that we’re designing patterns and the cultural codes that are on the clothing…I feel like the industry has just been cracked open.”