VIFW 2025 Interview with Designer Rebecca Baker-Grenier

Rebecca Baker-Grenier will be showing her latest collection on the runway at VIFW on November 20th - All My Relations.  Tix can be purchased HERE!

VIFW Bio - 

Rebecca Baker-Grenier is a multidisciplinary artist of Kwakiutl, Dzawada’enuxw, and Skwxwú7mesh descent. With a BA in Indigenous Studies from UBC, she began her fashion journey in 2021 and trained under Pam Baker. Her designs blend cultural identity with contemporary art and have appeared at New York and Vancouver Fashion Weeks, as well as SWAIA in Santa Fe. In 2021, she received the YVR Emerging Artist award and was recently featured in Elle Canada.

Follow them on Instagram: @rebecca.baker.g

Interview - 

Please share a bit about your journey to embrace fashion design as a career.

I don’t think I had the typical journey of a fashion designer. I grew up watching my mother sew, helping her do whatever small tasks, playing in her sewing room. This is how she grew up with her mother and now my kids do the same. When I was 11, my mother taught me how to use the sewing machine and a few basic skills. I then made my own dance regalia and have since been sewing and beading personal and family regalia.

In 2021 I wanted to push my creativity and skills to learn fashion design, I debuted my first collection at New York Fashion Week, in September 2022. For me fashion is way to demonstrate our pride as Indigenous people and represent who we are. It’s also a way for non-Indigenous people to learn and support, even just a little bit.

How did you learn your skills?

Initially my mother taught me to sew, and over the years I gained tips and tricks from family. A lot of learning has been trial and error, but it’s always worth trying new things and pushing yourself to improve. In 2021 I started apprenticing under my aunty Himikalas Pam Baker for fashion design. She is an established and very talented artist and designer and has been instrumental in my journey so far as a fashion designer. In our culture, this is the way we learn, from our family, so it is special that this has been my experience.

Who are you as a designer? Aesthetic? Customer? Brand?

There is an intimate and ancestral connection to the art that I create. I strive to represent my identity as a Kwakiutl, Dzawada’enuxw, and Squamish woman. Art is a means to transfer knowledge and carry forward our culture for the next generation.

For me, it’s about creating something that has meaning and a purpose. Art is about imagining something that hasn’t been done before, pushing the limits of what we think might be possible, and doing something new and exciting.

Some of the pieces that I create would not be for sale due to the nature of the piece itself. However, generally, I do create designs that are wearable for everyone – Indigenous and non-Indigenous.

What comes easiest for you as a designer? What is hardest?

I love the creative aspect – imagining designs, colors, silhouettes – the options are endless. For me, the story comes first and the meaning behind what I am creating is as important as the finished product.

Where do you find inspiration for new collections? How important is colour to your design process?

Inspiration is everywhere. My work starts with my culture, the land, and all that is around. Sometimes inspiration is a feeling, a movement, a texture, a color and sometimes it’s rooted in a story, history, or my lineage.

Color is foundational to my design process. My current collection’s color palette is based on copper. Copper as a material and symbol is important in my culture. Copper, being a living metal, transforms to diverse range of colors as it patinas – blues, greens, blacks, and so on.

Readers would love to know more about the current collection you showed at Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week 2025.

My newest collection - “Our Roots Run Deep” - looks at the integral relationship between waterways and the neighbouring forest systems, our cultural connection within this relationship, and the impact of colonial and extractive practices on these relationships. This relationship creates an intricate and delicate balance that impacts the land around it and holds the key to a healthy and thriving ecosystem. Deforestation, urbanization, and colonial extractive practices forget the teachings of this land and they ignore all that it has taught us in how to care for it. It is the destruction of a mutually dependant complex system of life. Our supernatural beings, our stories, our histories, our very essence of our cultural identity all comes from the land. We are of the land and will one day return to the land. When it is gone, what happens?

Where can readers purchase your designs?

Directly through me via Instagram or by contacting me through my website. I just released my first ready to wear clothing. I will have pieces from my collection and ready to wear available at Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week.

What's next for you as a designer and your brand?

Links -

• Website - www.rebeccabakergrenier.com
• Instagram - @rebecca.baker.g