Cut My Coat: The Inuvik Parka Enterprise, Canadian by Design w/Jennifer Burgess

This presentation will examine felted wool coats made in Inuvik that were sold into southern markets for an increasingly cosmopolitan, wealthy, and young consumer public. I will detail how these coats were made, and what they can tell us about both the women who made them, and the women who wore them. In elucidating this history, I will highlight important moments in post-war fashion, youth culture, women’s liberation and feminism, and detail some of the catalysts for changes in Canadian taste culture. I will also be demonstrating, step by step, the methods and approaches I used to develop this scholarship, highlighting challenges I faced in this work and how I addressed those moments to give students a blue print for how to negotiate non-linear research. By tracing both the production and consumption histories of felted wool parkas from Inuvik Parka Enterprise, I will tease out some of the overarching trends of southern taste and consumption in mid-century Canada, and how those trends impacted Inuit makers and their communities.