What to know
- Baerg’s Rainbow, Illuminosity and the Dream collection debuted at Indigenous New York Fashion Week, blending textile science with visual sovereignty.
- The designer’s practice is deeply rooted in Indigenous teachings, including the Medicine Wheel, with each colour explored as a year-long meditation.
- Collaborations highlight intergenerational talent, such as custom nail art by 13-year-old Elena Calderon Lavallee and handbags by Toronto-based Edte.
- Baerg’s accessories incorporate horsehair, symbolizing healing and movement, drawing inspiration from traditional horse medicine ceremonies.
Toronto-based Cree-Métis designer Jason P. Baerg fuses Indigenous futurism, intergenerational creativity, and boundary-pushing style on runways from Fashion Art Toronto to Indigenous New York Fashion Week.
For years, Jason P. Baerg, founder of Ayimach Horizons, has taken their Indigenous futuristic collections to Fashion Art Toronto and other stages. Now, they’ve taken their revolutionary fashion pieces to a renowned international stage in New York at the Indigenous New York Fashion Week (INYFW).
“It’s very humbling to see the rise occur, and I think about how that aligned with us for the very first time being on the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) calendar, and about all the hustlers, all the amazing matriarchs of Indigenous fashion, doing so much to amplify us; it’s really an honour,” Baerg told Now Toronto.
“We’re creating this space where we’re honouring our people, and it’s dignified… It’s a time for us to bring that beyond our own Indigenous nations into and to the masses, and there’s such incredible talent, and it’s an honour. It’s a real honour,” they added.
As Wednesday celebrates the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, Baerg touches on what they hope non-Indigenous audiences learn from their fashion collection.
“How brilliant we are. I think we can see how culture travels, and it does become very influential, and I’m hoping that it breaks down barriers for people to see people as people,” Baerg shared.
“When we think about art, it’s really about advancing ideas, and I think the content and the work is powerful and of value, and I believe that we should be able to embrace and celebrate, on all levels, fashion from all cultures,” they added.
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About Baerg’s Rainbow, Illuminosity and the Dream collection
Presented at INYFW, Baerg’s Rainbow, Illuminosity and the Dream collection sits at the creative crossroads of textile science and visual sovereignty. Through structural silhouettes, innovative textiles, and bold colour, Baerg explores Indigenous futurism.
“I am really trying to create those spaces of aspiration for our people. Talking about the dignity of a nation, the dignity of a people, I think really holding them up in the most beautiful way and an empowering way is probably the best gift I can personally give them through my art practice,” Baerg explained.
“When I think about Indigenous futurities, I think about the leaders, the leaders of the future, empowered, strong, proud, and these are all things that I carry into Ayimach Horizons,” they said.
Baerg also intends to disrupt traditional fashion through shapes, silhouettes and defying gender norms.
“I’m definitely pushing things beyond the normal, pushing things beyond the expected. Also thinking through gender variance, thinking about body shapes, thinking about design approaches for different sizes of people and the dynamics of empowerment that we can create through geometries on the body,” they added.
Baerg’s intergenerational collabs with a 13-year-old Indigenous artist and handbag designer
Baerg brought intergenerational talent to the stage in New York with custom nails set by Elena Calderon Lavallee, a 13-year-old Ojibway Anishinaabe, Lenca, and Pipil artist who, after only seven months of nail practice, caught Baerg’s attention.
“She is one of my friend’s daughters… so I gave her some creative parameters, which were the same as mine, the conceptual space of creative investigation was rainbow, illuminosity, and the dream, and we’re really envisioning best futures for our people… and she created some incredible work,” they said.
For the New York presentation, Baerg also brought in Edte, Michael Usling’s Toronto-based handbag brand, also recognized at the Canadian Arts & Fashion Awards (CAFA). In this collab, Usling’s handbags incorporated horsehair, a signature motif in Ayimach Horizons’ accessories.
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“Horsehair is a signal of healing. Horses are incredibly empathetic, and I worked with a horse healer who’s from the Blood Tribe in Alberta… If you’re 10 feet away from them, they start to mirror the same heartbeat,” Baerg said.
Baerg added that one of their friends with stomach cancer saw a horse healer, and the horse gnawed on her aching head, then took her pain away and returned it back to the earth. Then, she had no more stomach issues.
“Traditionally, we’ve been working with horse medicine for a long, long, long, long time… In the spring every year, I have a ceremony for the horse nation, and it’s also honouring the horse and our animal kin, and I also love the look of it,” Baerg said.
Through this collab, Baerg says the horsehair animates the accessories and serves as “dramatic punctuation that adds extra movement on the runway.”
Weaving the Medicine Wheel into fashion: Baerg’s fashion rooted in Indigenous teachings
Baerg has previously done a collection rooted in the teachings from the Medicine Wheel.
For visual reference, the Medicine Wheel is also located at Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square.
Baerg explains they spent a year in each colour:
- Yellow: where sunrises and ceremony begin.
- Red: honoured the colour south and earth metal.
- Black or blue: In the Cree way, they use blue to acknowledge the water.
- White: honoured the air, elders and ancestral knowledge.
“So I spent a year in each one of those colors, so they were intended meditations, and it was kind of like when you enter the Powwow circle, you are expected to do specific things, and there are certain protocols as you enter that family of art practitioners. So, I kind of thought about that as a way for me to engage my own practice in fashion,” Baerg said.
With this new collection, Baerg is honouring all the colours through Rainbow, Illuminosity and the dream, but grounding it all with earth tones.
What’s next for Baerg?
Baerg is participating with three other designers in a group installation at an exhibition curated by Sandy Moore called “Fashion Show” at the Art Gallery of Regina.
Next up: Baerg’s flying to Vancouver for Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week (VIFW) to present on Nov. 20, and to present visual pieces at Fazakas Gallery, also in Vancouver, on the same theme of Rainbow, Illuminosity, and the dream on Nov. 21.
