Fashion Economies as Cultural Upheaval: Cloth, Colonialism, and Canadian National Narratives

This presentation examines Canadian identity through dress, arguing that fashion objects form an archive of globalization, colonization, First Nations agency, and national self-fashioning. Drawing from my monograph Canadian Fashion Economies (Bloomsbury 2025), it uses object-based analysis of Chilkat dancing blankets, beaver-felt top hats, and Hudson’s Bay trade cloth and blanket coats. These objects reveal First Nations trade networks and ceremonial authority, European imperial desire, and the transformation of commodities into national symbols. Challenging colonial narratives that privilege European influence, the paper proposes that Canadian identities have been materially negotiated through exchange, adaptation, and creative survival, with dress actively shaping memory and nationhood.