JH: Are you able to tell me the origin story of how you two got together to form this brand?

 

JL: We used to play baseball together. He runs a print shop and I used to go hang out there and we would just play around with some designs and print some t-shirts. It just kind of started. Both of us like art, fashion, streetwear and stuff like that [so] it just grew from that into...Obviously I’m Indigenous and I knew that there wasn’t a lot of native streetwear companies so I wanted to go down that road. I had the expertise, knowledge and production to kind of get us of the ground and just ran with that.

 

JH: If you don’t mind me asking, what band are you from?

 

JL: My reserve is Samson Cree Nation and that’s in central Alberta.

 

JH: I was particularly interested in your defacing of sports team logos...When did you guys come up with that? Was that one of your first lines?

 

JL: I wouldn’t say that it was one of our first ones, but it was one of the ones where we really got noticed by a lot of people. That was a collaboration with an artist [Santiago X] in Chicago. I bought a painting off him with that image and we stayed in touch. I thought “damn, we could do something really cool with that piece of art,” and it kind of took on a life of its own, “Kill Mascots, Save People.” We collaborated heavy on putting together something and I designed a whole collection and went from there. We’ve done a couple of releases on that stuff on variations.

 

JH: Was the initial image for the [Blackhawks] or the Red Sox?

 

JL: It was the Blackhawks logo. The “deadhawks.”

 

JH: Are you guys just online right now, or are you retailing anywhere?

 

JL: Yeah, we’re strictly online. I think maybe at some point in the future we would look at that. There’s a lot of work that goes into it and we’re not quite there yet. We’ve spent the last three years creating an online presence.

 

JH: One thing I’ve noticed about fashion and Indigenous culture is that you don’t want to capitalize on culture. How do you find that balance of creating a presence of Indigineity in fashion without marketing too heavily into the culture?

 

JL: Yeah, I have my own perspective and it may vary from other people. One of the things is cultural appropriation. I  challenge myself to design and create at least a vision for a brand that doesn’t play too heavily into a pan-Indigenous aspect of everything. Whether that’s headdresses and feathers all over everything. Some people do it [and] it works for them. I think we have beautiful imagery and we use it to an extent for sure but I think you can...I think that’s why I’m trying to be different, to not bastardize imagery. You see it out there, there’s a lot of people that do different things. Certainly we’re a little different in that sense than some other brands. I don’t know if that answers your questions I kind of went all over the place.

 

JH: Yes, yes. I myself immediately thought of when [brands] released their festival wear and it was all culturally appropriated.

 

JL: Yeah, and there’s a lot of in different communities where families have rights to designs, patterns and stuff like that. But very conscious of not putting this in a position where something can be perceived as stolen, right? In a sense, it’s easy to stay away from a lot of that stuff. A lot of times when we do use imagery it’s something that I know for a fact that I can use or have permission to use. It’s in a thoughtful and proper way.

 

JH: What kind of conversations do you hope come out of this clothing?

 

JL: The name alone is a conversation starter for a lot of people. A lot of people, believe it or not, are not familiar with Section 35, at least in Canada they’re not. We have a pretty good reach into the States and people certainly don’t know down there, but when they realize the meaning and the underlying political tone to it, they really appreciate that even more. People can connect to that. The whole concept of streetwear. We live in if you want to call it a modern world, so we walk between different worlds. Really me wanting to create something for Indigenous people and non-Indigenous that is still a reflection of our worldviews and values in a really contemporary medium. To me, that’s what streetwear is, what we wear when we walk into a different world. And we’re in a big market of people wearing streetwear every day so we wanted to give them something that they connect with, that’s them and that they can wear proudly.

 

JH: You’re the only design duo I’ve come across so far that is both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. How does that duo play in your favour, in your opinion?

 

JL: I don’t know if it really does. Certainly me being the creative director, I do pretty much all of the design and it’s a reflection of my world views more than anything. Andrew is predominantly production and some of the back-end business stuff. In a sense I feel that a lot of the times its created challenges internally, it’s a learning process for both of us. We both have different experiences and we both come from very different places. We’ve had to find some happy mediums at times with things and sometimes he doesn’t understand. We have disagreements, but it’s like that with any business. I wouldn’t say that it’s been necessarily beneficial. I think a lot of times it creates more questions from people than anything. Like, why is there a white guy at an Indigenous streetwear brand? It’s easy for people to misunderstand the structure but for the most part there hasn’t been any serious issues. I handle the creative and I do most of the front-end [and] representation of the brand just so the people know that there’s an authentic Indigenous voice behind it. It’s not white people taking something native and capitalizing on it, which is what you were talking about. All these brands putting out Indigenous-inspired stuff.

 

JH: Have you been contacted by any of the teams for the logos at all?

 

JL: No, I haven’t. We won’t release that stuff again but we did a logo when we first launched which was a flip on a hockey logo and we did get a cease and desist from the NHL for that logo. We’re kind of that type of, if you want to call it brandalism or whatever. [In] prevalent streetwear people always try to do fun flips on stuff like that for their message. But it’s a risk when you’re talking about art and logos and sports teams, there’s a whole risk of legal issues. You have to walk a fine line.

 

JH: There’s a logo for the Hobbema Hawks...who are they?

 

JL: That’s actually an old junior-hockey team that was from my reserve. That whole collection came from - the first t-shirt I ever printed was just a reprint of that logo. I always wanted to do a broader release of them ... That logo now is the main logo for all of our youth hockey programs, they’re all the Hawks now. So it’s really cool that they brought that back and reclaimed it as part of the community so I wanted to create something that reflected that because that logo is very important for everybody.

 

JH: What’s next for you guys?

 

JL: We’ve got some spring basics coming out in a couple of weeks. We just purchased a brand that’s going to be a sub-brand that’s kind of a pow-wow theme... The company I bought was pretty much the only one that was doing anything worthy in that market and he didn’t have time to do it anymore...When we release that out as a sub-brand it will be a collaboration of the two brands and an introduction for our following. I’m currently working in a collective with four other artists from the States. We’re actually doing a big Indigenous People’s Day release with the Hundreds which is a streetwear company out of LA. That’s really where my energy has been, focusing on that collective. I just got back from LA last week and we were just starting the first work on that designing and what that collection is gonna look like in October. Other than that, I’m just working on winter and summer releases. Just trying to make sure we have ourselves with projects out there and we can ride that wave from that spin-off. The Hundreds is a very well-known...it’s a brand that I’ve looked up to for a long time. As a small business owner and artist to get an opportunity to work with a brand that you look up to. I’ve been buying their clothes for a long time so to have an opportunity to sit in a boardroom with all those guys, to become peers with them is pretty cool. We’re anticipating that in our own brands will be able to get extended exposure and a whole new audience. We’re preparing this business to be able to ride that wave.