On Thursday June 8, IKEA Canada is debuting something incredibly special: a limited-edition capsule collection made in partnership with Toronto-based Setsuné Indigenous Fashion Incubator and sold exclusively at IKEA Etobicoke. It’s the first time IKEA Canada has co-created a line with local social entrepreneurs.
The kitchen textile capsule—named Återställa, which is Swedish for “restore,” “heal” or “redecorate”—consists of four items: an apron, a pouch, a soft basket and a tea towel, all handmade from salvaged IKEA textiles by a group of five Indigenous women. They spent six weeks at the home furnishing giant’s Etobicoke, Ont. location, sewing 2,000 one-of-a-kind pieces for the collection.
“We worked together in IKEA, day after day, listening to Beyoncé,” says Sage Paul, co-creator of Setsuné, which means “grandmother” in Dene. The incubator launched in 2014 and has since worked with dozens of Indigenous makers, teaching practical retail skills alongside workshops on traditional artistry (fish-scale art; indigo dying; pow-wow regalia).
Paul, who studied fashion at Toronto’s George Brown College and has been sewing since she was a kid—”I made hats when Blossom was really big”—co-created the incubator with Erika Iserhoff, a textile artist. “We really just hit a need,” she says. “There are so many Indigenous artists, especially women and mothers, who are working in fashion and retail.”
The collective’s vision for the IKEA collaboration centred around the indigenous philosophy of “use everything,” explains Paul: “We took the image of hunting and bringing an animal into the kitchen, where everything is prepared and nothing goes to waste. That philosophy parallels the sustainability aspects of the project as a whole.”
The end result? A truly unique, made-in-Canada capsule that’s rooted in Indigenous culture and guaranteed to sell out, stat.
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