Parkas, kamiit and amautiit shown off in Arviat, Nunavut, fashion show

It was a showcase of the best of Kivalliq Inuit fashion in Arviat, Nunavut, last weekend.

The seventh annual Kakpik Fashion show took place on Sunday featuring 97 handmade garments made by 22 seamstresses in the community.

Chelsey St. John, who helped organize the event, started sewing when she was 10 after her mother told her to sew her own jacket.

“It was just in my blood,” St. John said, “She put her foot down and said, ‘nope, you sew.’ I made my own pattern.

“The most hideous jacket you’ve ever seen, my first one.”

The theme of this year’s show was amautiit, or traditional parkas that hold a small child or baby in a pouch inside the hood.

The show featured plenty of amautiit, kamiit (traditional sealskin boots) and parkas.

A model shows a handmade amautit at the fashion show in Arviat last Sunday. (Selma Eccles/CBC )

Now in her 30s, St. John is one of many talented sewers in Arviat and has her own business called Sophia’s Outerwear. People gathered at John Arnalukjuak High School last Sunday to show off what they’d made.

The items on display were also sold at the show. Jade Borden Lee was one of the happy customers.

“I bought a new parka from Chelsey St.John or Sophia’s Outerwear and it’s red with sealskin and I love it a lot. I’m really excited,” St. John said.

St. John said she hopes other communities beyond Arviat can be involved in next year’s show.

“I don’t know where to start because we’re so busy, busy, busy. I start to only think about the show after the fact. So like right now, I’m so much in awe how it turned out, how many seamstresses we had.”

Charlotte St. John, one of Arviat’s many seamstresses, sells her parkas at a table at the Kakpik Fashion Show last weekend. (Selma Eccles/CBC)

St. John said they received funding for the show from the hamlet two months ago. She wasn’t even sure who would even participate in the event, she said.

“I didn’t think anybody would be sewing,” she said. “We had no idea who was going to come, the day before.”

Ultimately, St. John said she hopes events like this inspire more people to sew and keep the traditional practice alive.

“We would like for the culture to stay and I would really much to encourage them to start sewing.”