Traditional garments on the catwalk

Whether you have heard of her or not, Tammy Beauvais is probably Quebec’s most prolific Aboriginal fashion designer. She is now giving another generation a chance at following in her footsteps.

Beauvais has made a career of creating and selling longhouse-inspired traditional Native garments for men and women as well as contemporary clothes with a Native twist. She is a self-made entrepreneur, who is completely self-taught when it comes to her craft.

Beauvais started making traditional clothing when she was eight years old though she only made her first sale when she was 15. From that point onwards, whenever she was working or in school, selling her designs was what supplemented her income and helped her get where she needed to go. Having been only on partial funding while attending social work school in Ontario, the design work was what permitted Beauvais to complete her education.

“I was pretty entrepreneurial. I did that social work program and once I finished I decided that I really didn’t want to be a social worker. I knew as a young girl of seven or eight that I was going to be a fashion designer. So I went back to that original thought about wanting to open a business,” said Beauvais.

Refocusing her energy, she then took entrepreneurial courses to learn how to start a business and landed two prestigious fashion internships. One of which was with famed Toronto designer Linda Lundstrom, who owns one of Canada’s largest and most successful fashion design companies.

At 29, Beauvais hit her mark and launched her own fashion design business in 1999, but it wasn’t without a struggle.

As a child, Beauvais began making her own traditional clothing because it simply wasn’t available. Though baptized Catholic, Beauvais’ mother took her to a longhouse for the first time in Akwesasne where she saw others making the garments. This would serve as a lifelong inspiration for her.

When Beauvais started out, she found that people in her community of Kahnawake were not interested in her products and especially the traditional cultural symbols she incorporated into the designs.

“The more traditional people said that it was taboo and that I shouldn’t be using them. The people who were not traditional kept saying that this was only for longhouse people, or traditional people, so it was taboo,” said Beauvais.

Beauvais found herself instead developing a market in New York State where Natives and non-Natives in particular showed an interest in her products.

Her business also took on new life once celebrities like Robert De Niro and Pierce Brosnan were photographed wearing her duds in major magazines. With that she began to gain acceptance.

In January 2009, Beauvais decided her career had plateaued so she decided to go in a different direction – work with the youth to give back.

This past spring Beauvais created an internship program to work with local high-school students in Kahnawake. She did this while already interning three summer students studying fashion design production. The project was a high-school fashion show.

“I decided not to do a fashion show that was all about the models and the clothes, that is just a small part of it. What it was going to be about was teaching skills like marketing, sales, advertising, graphic design and all of the aspects that go into organizing a fashion show,” said Beauvais.

The project involved Beauvais working with three or four teachers from the school along with 30 students doing everything from poster design to building the stage for the event to fundraising to pay for the project.

While her high-school students took care of the show, Beauvais worked with the other three on their own creations that they were able to showcase on the catwalk. One girl was as young as 11 but she managed to create her own traditional outfit right down to the beadwork.

Another one of her students, a fashion design student from LaSalle College studying product development and new techniques in the industry, managed to show Beauvais some new tricks of the trade.

Though Beauvais said that it was a successful summer teaching the three, she said that she would rather take on interns one at a time from now on so that she can give them more individual attention.

“This is all working out and it’s good. It was lots of work and lots of stress. I don’t have kids of my own but this was like having three. I was overwhelmed at times but it was really good and very rewarding,” said Beauvais.