FASHION AS REBELLION
a photo essay by slone fox
Katelyn Juniper is a vivacious and outspoken alternative model set on making statements both politically and otherwise. With a half-Cree father and a half-Metis mother, Juniper metaphorically has a foot in two different cultural courts, something that influences both how she lives her day to day life as well as the ways in which she expresses herself:
"I don't dress the way I do because I’m Indigenous, but just the environment and societal position I grew up in as a result of being Indigenous has lead me to be interested in alternative style and deviating from the norm. It was never planned in any way, I’ve always just been drawn to it. I always looked at native regalia and how colourful and gorgeous it is and I’m like yeah, man, that’s something I want to use in my own way."
As a result of the Indian Act of 1876, Juniper's great-great-grandmother was forced to marry a white man out of necessity for the survival of her and her children, resulting in the loss of status for all following members in Juniper's lineage. Due to the notoriously convoluted and complicated route to achieve status again, Juniper has found alternative ways to incorporate the background and culture that was taken away from her 120 years before she was even born.
Using fashion as a way to make a political statement, Juniper weaves in inspiration from both traditional Cree and Metis clothing to stand up against what she describes as "a government that has been wildly unkind to us."
"I think society pictures Indigenous fashion as either little savage people with no clothes on running around with war paint on, or just native art printed on shirts, essentially. Like the knitted sweaters with the black Haida print on them, or maybe something that has, like, a seal skin hood. I don’t think that people think of native fashion as branching anywhere outside of tradition at this point.”
“I got really into anarchy and anti-faschism with the way that society, especially in the western world, is shifting. With Donald Trump and all the different regimes that are arising, I just feel like we need to start investigating either different forms of governments or different ways to defend ourselves from the current government and the overbearing monster of capitalism and consumerism that is making life hard in every single aspect of life. I think we need to do something, and if I can do something as small as putting a stupid patch on my jacket and being informed and standing up for what I believe in, then we might have a shot.”
“Fashion can be very political if you make it to be, and I know that I do. I like to draw things or write words by my eyeballs in eyeliner to project whatever I’m feeling like projecting that day. The way that you adorn yourself is about more than what you’re projecting to everyone else. It’s putting what you believe in on your body to show everyone else. You don’t have to wear clothes just to clothe yourself for the day or so that you look nice. They can serve a bigger purpose.”
boot·lick·er
/ˈbo͞otˌlikər/
noun
INFORMAL
noun: bootlicker; plural noun: bootlickers; noun: boot-licker; plural noun: boot-lickers
an obsequious or overly deferential person; a toady.
"bootlickers telling him what a big star he's going to be"
synonyms: sycophant, obsequious person, toady, fawner, flatterer, creep, crawler, lickspittle, truckler, groveller, doormat, kowtower, spaniel, Uriah Heep;