70. Christian Allaire: From the Rez to the Runway

Christian Allaire lives and works at the centre of the global fashion industry in New York City, where he covers celebrity style, red carpets, emerging designers and trends, and more as a senior fashion and style writer for Vogue—but he was once a young boy growing up on the Nipissing First Nation reserve in Ontario, harbouring a high fashion dream that seemed like a remote fantasy. From his first encounters with traditional Ojibwe powwow regalia, through grinding as an unpaid intern to build the career he has today, Allaire’s memoir, From the Rez to the Runway, is a candid, inspiring account of how a boy from the rez broke into the exclusive world of fashion, carving out a space for himself and his community. Moderated by Michelle Cyca.

Presented in partnership with HarperCollins Canada Ltd and Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week.

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Christian Allaire

CHRISTIAN ALLAIRE is an Ojibwe, French and Italian writer who grew up on the Nipissing First Nation reserve in Northern Ontario. He is currently a senior fashion and style writer for Vogue, where he works to bring Indigenous design and stories to the forefront of fashion. Allaire is based in Brooklyn, New York.

Michelle Cyca

MICHELLE CYCA is a senior editor for The Narwhal and a contributing writer to The Walrus. Her literary criticism and books coverage appears in Quill & Quire, The Globe & Mail, The Tyee and the Vancouver Sun. Michelle is a board member for Upstart & Crow, a non-profit society and literary incubator based on Granville Island, and the chair of tâpwêwin media, an independent, Indigenous-led publishing non-profit. She is a member of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Treaty 6, and she lives and works in Vancouver on unceded Musqueam territory.