The artist
Dene. Of the Mackenzie. Building Canadian couture out of hide.
D'Arcy J. Moses is of the Pehdzéh Kı̨ First Nation at Wrigley, NT. A first grant from the Canadian Native Arts Foundation took him from Vancouver to the Toronto Fashion Incubator. The Festival of Fashion, 1991. The Globe and Mail ran a garment the next morning.
Holt Renfrew, Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus. Independents in Europe and Asia. The Gold Thimble. Wool Bureau, Dubonnet. The Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal. The Government of the Northwest Territories bought a retrospective of gowns for the permanent collection.
He works today from a studio in Enterprise. Hide from family harvests in Wrigley. Digital embroidery after beadwork by his late grandmother, Margaret Moses — a master beader. Vests and moosehide bags are what people ask for. Teaching at Banff Centre. A house line of pillows and throws. Couture that still insists hide and beadwork belong in the same sentence as Givenchy.
- 1991 Toronto Festival of Fashion; Globe and Mail
- 1992–97 Holt Renfrew, Saks, Neiman Marcus
- 1997 Returns to Wrigley
- 2012 McMichael, Fashion as Art
- 2022 Vogue, Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week
- Now Studio, Enterprise, NT
The press
Symbolism and modernism
White silk, a bear motif. White wool, mother-of-pearl. A red car, a blue sky. The line the magazines already knew: traditional native motifs on simple, born-yesterday shapes.
Margaret Moses
A master beader. The hand the machine has to match.
His late grandmother. Digital embroidery designed to read as her traditional Dene florals — then mixed with moosehide, northern fur, a couture finish. The same inheritance sits on the pillows in The house, and on Further’s upcycled fur at Cahill’s.
The notePrivate commissions
A few pieces a year. Expensive on purpose.
The shop is the inventory. A commission is something else: hide, a vest to measure, a bag that does not exist yet. Write. A deposit is arranged after a conversation, never from a cart.