Christian Allaire is rewriting the rules of fashion journalism. Allaire, who is Ojibway, is the fashion and style writer at Vogue. When his first Indigenous-focused fashion article for the venerable fashion title, “How 6 Indigenous Designers Are Using Fashion to Reclaim Their Future” went live, Indigenous people sent him a over a hundred tweets, DMs and comments. “It opened the floodgates. I started receiving a ton of pitches and started being introduced to so many great new artists and designe

This is clearly not a pleasurable topic, but it’s presently unescapable. Across the internet, news, social media and socially distanced conversations, the topic of racism is everywhere, as it should be. I’ve made a point of my journalism career to highlight and lift up Indigenous voices, to keep things positive and show off incredible achievements and spirit. Right now I’m wondering if that is enough.

While Mainstream media has been slow to hear this appeal, a tide of Indigenous female artists are responding by smashing stereotypes and taking ownership of their own sexuality in their work. Crafting provocative pieces – from beaded BDSM masks to burlesque performances centred around residential schools – these creatives are striving to make space for positive representations of our bodies and sensuality by producing art that can help heal both the viewer and the maker.

This is the refrain I need to remind myself daily: “I cannot be all of the things.” For the most part I understand that the sacrifice my family of four is making by staying home and social distancing is an extremely small price to pay in order to stop the spread of Covid-19. We are lucky. We’re not frontline workers or employed by essential services and our kids are young enough that they’re not missing major school events or lessons. We are healthy. Our loved ones are healthy.

Our most precious resource faces endless threats, including pollution, resource extraction and for-profit bottling. Across Canada, these women are trying to protect it. Makaśa Looking Horse, Six Nations of the Grand River (near Brantford, Ont.) “Knowing that my community doesn’t have clean drinking water, and then a large corporation like Nestlé is making billions off of our water is maddening,” says Makaśa Looking Horse.

Even to a non-member of the Rihanna Navy, it’s easy to admire the powerhouse singer and business woman also known as Robyn Rihanna Fenty. Besides, what better time to write a love letter to Rihanna – we’ve got time as we’re social distancing – and especially to enjoy her March 2020 British Vogue cover in a durag (the mag’s first cover appearance of the headgear, a symbol of black life, writes British Vogue’s editor-in-chief Edward Enninful).

That’s how many are hit by vehicles. Here are six West Enders’ stories behind the statistic.

More than 5,000 athletes from across North America will compete in Atlantic Canada’s largest multisport event.

BUG by Yolanda Bonnell (Manidoons Collective/Theatre Passe Muraille/Native Earth Performing Arts). At Theatre Passe Muraille (16 Ryerson). Runs to February 22. $17-$38. 416-504-7529, passemuraille.ca. See listing. Rating: Yolanda Bonnell’s solo show bug is an enthralling journey into the struggles of two Indigenous women – and their vices. The character we spend the most time with is the Girl, who starts out naive and hopeful, full of love for fireflies and wishing she, too, could glow.

Maria Clara de Sena has lived in Toronto for two and a half years, but still receives calls from her home country Brazil with news of another trans person who has been murdered. “The process in Brazil now is to kill us one by one,” she says during an interview at the cafe in the 519 Community Centre. “Many Trans woman have to go to the street every single day to work as sex workers to survive.”

Racism in doctors’ offices and emergency rooms is a fact of life for Indigenous people living in the GTA. But this trio of women – a communications mastermind, a doctor and strategist, and an Elder in residence – have set out to change that Several years ago, Joy Henderson was at home alone, indulging in a rare nap, when a cyst in her ovary ruptured. As her symptoms intensified, her in-laws happened to drop in, and they drove her to Scarborough General Hospital.

The kids entertainment industry has recently seen the launch of new streaming services, big platforms locking down talent and kids shows becoming more high profile than ever. While it seems like a time of upheaval, as we look to the next decade, that generally means there’s an opportunity for much-needed fresh voices to bring diverse storytelling to the forefront. The numbers from the Landscape of Children’s Television in the US & Canada reveal that males dominate in director, writer and creato

When I was a kid, I was a bookworm that only stepped into the sports world briefly with a toe pick. I spent probably one year in figure skating, and never ventured into the sports that my brother, dad and male cousins were well versed in – hockey, golf, and track and field. While I’m happy to have had all those years of escaping into the worlds of babysitters clubs and more, I wanted to give my daughter a few more opportunities to find an activity she might like. She’s tried gymnastics and bal

Flooding, melting icecaps and wildfires are some of the effects of climate change that grab headlines. If you’re more interested in doing something about it than watching the news, several post-secondary schools in Ontario are now offering climate-change-focused courses and programs. Altaf Arain, director of McMaster University’s Centre for Climate Change, says that universities around the world are incorporating climate change across faculties, from master’s degrees to one-off continuing ed co

While Instagram can often show the glossy side of life—the beautiful vacations, the impeccable farm homes, and private jet life—it also offers the opportunity to gain knowledge about un-glossy, but important issues.

The Royal Ontario Museum’s iconic Nisga’a and Haida Crest totem poles have a new companion: a permanent mural created by the ROM’s Youth Cabinet that represents the Indigenous knowledge they’ve learned and pays tribute to a fallen warrior. In 2016, Kiowa Wind McComb helped form the youth cabinet. Then the Indigenous Youth Intern, the George Brown College student ran the cabinet alongside coordinator Leslie McCue, who also serves as the ROM’s Indigenous Knowledge Resource Teacher Jessie Jakumeit

If you follow Chief Lady Bird’s Instagram, which I highly recommend, you’ll find an amazing mix of erotic artwork and selfies of the tattooed and expertly eye-lined badass Indigenous artist. Her feed is dominated by her sexuality, which oozes into many facets of her life and her career. For example scenes from a photo shoot of Chief Lady Bird sensually eating pickerel and berries pop up later, turned into a mixed media illustration that was displayed at an art exhibition. I met up with her at

In high school, Christine Cutamora entered a co-op program that took her from shadowing housekeeping attendants in a downtown Toronto hotel to hunting down a pair of Christian Louboutin shoes for a guest. Originally, she wanted to go into the events field in post-secondary, but pivoted to hospitality and now works as a reservations agent at the Hazelton Hotel, making $21 an hour while attending George Brown College’s tourism and hospitality management program. “If it weren’t for the Be Our Gue

I recently had the pleasure of attending Lesley Hampton’s fashion show during Toronto Fashion Week and from start to finish, it was an amazing experience. A fashion show is an event, with an entire team of people working together to pull it off, from the music and lighting to the designer and the make up artists. I love the spectacle and the multitude of deliberate decisions that have gone into every stitch and step. The venue was a museum with soaring ceilings, that had swapped out its audien

FORGIVE ME as part of the program Perceptions at ImagineNative at TIFF Bell Lightbox (360 King West), Friday (October 25), 10:30 am. Free. imaginative.org. Chelsea Winstanley is “somewhere between Hamilton and Guelph” on the set of Danis Goulet’s first feature, Night Raiders. The Indigenous female-fronted sci-fi film is reminiscent of the projects the L.A.-based Maori producer/director has worked on like Merata Mita’s Saving Grace, Te Whakarauora Tangata and Waru, an anthology feature made by n