Description
Part look-book, part memoir, and part history, this beautifully illustrated monument to a singular designer who helped inspire the growing Indigenous fashion movement is also a powerful demonstration of the enduring resonance and possibilities of Haida art.
By Dorothy Grant and with commentaries by Sdahl K'awaas Lucy Bell, a member of the Tsiits G'itanee Eagle clan of the Haida Nation, Kwiaahwah Jones, part of the Naasagas Xaaydagaay clan on the Haida side of her family and the Ganada clan on the Nisga'a side, India Rael Young, and Taa.uu 'Yuuwans Nika Collison who belongs to the ?aay'ahl Laanas of the Haida Nation.
Dorothy Grant was born into the Raven Clan of the Kaigani Haida in Hydaburg, Alaska, in 1955. She began sewing at age thirteen and learned traditional Haida arts in the early 1980s from Florence Edenshaw Davidson of Masset, Haida Gwaii. After graduating from the Helen Lefeaux School of Fashion Design in Vancouver she launched Feastwear, a fusion of traditional Haida art and haute couture, in 1989, and continues to produce bespoke garments for clients as well as wholesale and retail clothing lines. Her work has appeared in exhibitions around the world and is held in the permanent collections of numerous institutions, including the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, the National Gallery of Canada, the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, and the American Museum of Natural History. Her many awards and honours include the Order of Canada (2015) and an Honourary Doctorate of Arts from Simon Fraser University (2017). Recently Grant has been visiting Indigenous communities to mentor young entrepreneurs and teach the art of fur-felted ceremonial hats.
Inspired by a discussion with celebrated Haida artist Bill Reid, Haida designer Dorothy Grant made it her life's mission to bring her culture's traditional art into contemporary fashion while adhering to the principle of Yaguudang, or respect for oneself and others. The 1989 launch of her Feastwear collection, featuring modern silhouettes hand-appliqued with Northwest Coast formline, immediately established her at the forefront of Indigenous fashion in North America, and she has since hosted runway shows and trunk sales from Paris to Vancouver to Tokyo. Her clients include Indigenous leaders, national politicians, and global celebrities, and her garments can be found in museums and galleries around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Dorothy Grant: An Endless Thread is the first monograph to celebrate her trailblazing career. It features new photography of dozens of garments spanning the past four decades, modeled in studio and natural settings in Vancouver and Haida Gwaii, alongside sketches, traditional button robes and spruce-root weaving, and personal stories and reflections from Grant. Essays by Haida repatriation specialist and museologist Sdahl K'awaas Lucy Bell and curator India Rael Young place Grant in the long continuum of Haida fashion and trace the many innovations and accomplishments of her journey, and Haida curator and artist Kwiaahwah Jones, a longtime assistant to Grant, shares behind-the-scenes insights and memories. An associated exhibition, Dorothy Grant: Retrospect, opens at Haida Gwaii Museum in spring 2024. This book contains 100 colour photos.