Lesley Hampton
Photography by Kristina Dittmar

A Conversation with Lesley Hampton

The boundary-pushing designer opens up about Indigenous identity and inclusivity

Lesley Hampton is supposed to be vacationing with her parents in Prince George, B.C. Instead, the fashion designer is working full-time—think a partnership with Knix and a modelling gig for Nike—while accolades, like the Fashion Impact Award from the Canadian Arts and Fashion Awards and the Indspire Award Youth award, keep on coming.

Hampton, who is Anishinaabe and Scottish-Canadian, grew up in Australia, New Caledonia, Indonesia, England and Canada’s Arctic. She’s known for designing soft and pretty formal wear, as well as fun, vibrant athleisure, and she infuses her work with Indigenous stories. Her Eighteen Seventy Six collection from 2019 referenced the creation of the Indian Act. She launched that collection during Toronto Fashion Week with an all-Indigenous cast.

I first met Hampton after seeing her Lithium collection during the inaugural Indigenous Fashion Week Toronto in 2018. As her mom stood nearby, Hampton was radiating joy in the cleared-out room at the Harbourfront Centre, wearing a floor-length silver sequined gown topped with a black bomber. The back of her jacket read, “We are in control,” and profits from jacket sales went to mental health services in Indigenous communities. It’s just one example of the ways Hampton uses her platform to speak out about issues close to her. Inclusive casting, booking models of all sizes, genders and abilities are other parts of the designer’s ethos.

She’s also part of the slow-fashion movement, and I’m excited to own my first piece of hers, a Hampton x Wabano jacket my husband bought for my 40th birthday, which is currently being made to order. I reconnected with Hampton again to talk about her eventful year, Indigenous identity and why inclusivity is never a gimmick.

You’re driving beauty and fashion into a new untapped vein of activism.

“With our new Aurora collection that came out in June, we really wanted to focus on cultivating wellness through body neutrality, as opposed to body positivity. We’re all getting out of our homes for the first time, and our clothes might not fit the same way. It’s an interesting conversation—we have this weird idea that we can go back to the old normal, but the new normal is going to be better than what we came from. Your body got you through a global pandemic, and it’s incredible. Coming out the other side you need to have your clothing work for you, as opposed to the other way around. That is something that everyone is probably experiencing at the moment, so getting that idea of body neutrality out there is going to be really major for everyone’s mental health at the moment.”

How do you explain body neutrality versus body positivity?

“The way I like to look at it is you can have a bad hair day, but you know that it’ll get better and it won’t always be like that. You can have a bad body image day, but you understand there’s a greater purpose to our body besides just how it looks, and the next day is a new day. It’s also about respecting your body, because this will be the only body you’re going to have, so try to develop a healthy relationship, as opposed to toxic positivity, where you think you have to be happy about it all the time. We see certain body types, skin colors or even skin textures in the media as we grow up, and we’re conditioned to think that’s the way we should be. Even though we all know in the back of our heads that it’s Photoshop and almost nobody looks like that.”

Photography by Kristina DittmarLesley Hampton wearing pieces from her Aurora Collection.

How does the Aurora collection reflect this idea?

“We start with the colour schemes. We were inspired by Aurora Borealis, really light, airy happy colours like lilacs and mints. The shapes and the silhouettes of the collection are not skin-tight, and we have a number of wrap skirt options, which are adjustable if you do gain or lose weight, so those will be a staple in your closet because they accommodate to whatever body shape you have. I think focusing on shapes and silhouettes like that will allow people to be reintroduced to the public space in a lot healthier way.”

Shayla Stonechild is the model for your Aurora collection and portions of proceeds from that collection go to her Matriarch Movement


“[Designer] Scott Wabano introduced me to Shayla, and I was just so inspired by the way she uses her platform for sharing voices about Indigenous rights. I didn’t grow up in an Indigenous community and I’m inspired by people who did and are living an urban Native lifestyle, and how they use both aspects of themselves to push forward.”

When I go on your Instagram, you’re in a Nike Toronto ad, there’s the Indspire award, and the CAFA Fashion Impact Award. You’re everywhere!

“I’ve never experienced anything like this, ever. I applied for the Indspire Award and I heard a few months ago, but then they wait for June to announce it with CBC. Nike and the collaboration with The Birds Papaya were in the works for so long, so to me they were all spread out, but then posting it was like within the same three days. [The CAFA Fashion Impact Award] was huge. Not only is the work that we’re doing impacting the Indigenous community but it’s also impacting the mainstream fashion world. I’m speechless from it. Nike is pushing the idea that if you have a body, you’re an athlete. That’s a really interesting concept for me, because COVID was so hard on my mental health and body image and being introduced to that way of thinking really helped.”   

Did modelling for Wabano and Nike Toronto give you insights on how you should work with models, since you’re usually on the other side of it?

“I’ve always been really intrigued by both sides of it. On the designer side, I see the impact of making creative casting choices. At our shows, models literally came off the runway and started breaking down in tears because they were finally given that opportunity. I know what casting choices can communicate to the audience, but also the impact on the models themselves. After that fall/winter 2018 showcase, I reached out to an agency, B & M Models, to see if they would take me on as a model and I signed with them a few years ago. I wanted to be that curvy Indigenous person on their roster, and have that representation when the industry was ready for it. I didn’t get too many jobs over the first few years. Then, during COVID and the Black Lives Matter movement, people finally started to take diversity and inclusivity seriously, and that translated into all these incredible jobs for me.”

During one of your early shows, the focus on the all-Indigenous model roster almost overshadowed your designs. How can media do better when covering your work?

“When I was starting out, every time I included a diversity aspect, it always became a headline or a viral story. You can see that with the all-Indigenous cast, and when we cast a Boston bombing survivor. We were still a very young brand then and we weren’t even selling work, we were just presenting. I was just doing what I believed in; it wasn’t for the headlines.
I started my brand while I was still in school because I wanted to be at the forefront of pushing the industry in a better direction.”

That leads us to the Indspire awards

“I’ve dressed a number of their hosts in the past few years and I wanted to be a part of it, but I never felt like I was ready to apply. At the beginning of my career, coming back to Canada when I was 18, I struggled with my Indigeneity a lot, so I didn’t know if it was the right place for me to accept an award. I had to work through those issues and it’s such an honour, because it was such a journey to get to nominating myself. The impact that my work is actually having on Indigenous youth, and the Indigenous community and welcoming more Indigenous designers in the mainstream fashion scene is so inspiring that the push that I wanted to do at the beginning of my brand is being recognized.”

I find the conversation about identity so interesting. We can be very critical of ourselves, particularly if how you identify with your culture becomes synonymous with your work. Where are you at with it now?

“Given the platform that I have been given, with the privilege that I hold, as long as I’m always giving back and uplifting community members, that’s my place. Hopefully when I’m on the executive level of decision making, then I can always include the racial representation there.”

 

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