The designer Victoria Okpik is originally from Quaqtaq in Nunavik, northern Quebec. Simon asked Simon to make clothes for the appointment ceremony on Monday. At that time, Simon was formally sworn in as the 30th Governor of Canada-the first aboriginal in history to hold this position. .

Okpik said that Simon wanted a special outfit from her hometown.

Okpik has more than 20 years of tailoring and designer experience and is the first Inuit to graduate from LaSalle College in Montreal with a major in fashion design.

But Okpik only had 20 days to prepare Simon’s dress and jacket, and due to COVID-19 and distance, part of the process involved the measurement, design, and color of multiple emails back and forth.

“I am honored to be invited to design costumes for large-scale events, and I am very proud of Mary becoming the next Governor,” Opic said. “I am proud to be asked to make a dress.”

Beaded

Meanwhile, Julie Grenier is a beader from Kuujjuaq, also located in northern Quebec. After Okpik contacted her, she was responsible for the beading on the dress.

Grenier personally knows Simon because they come from the same small community.

“The deadline is very tight,” Garnier said. “We discussed what kind of beads they wanted and decided to use some embroidered beads. So I jumped on the boat and accepted the challenge.”

Grenier went with flowers and leaf beads. He said that this piece represents all the aborigines of Canada to some extent.

“It’s also fun to be able to sprinkle my own creativity on painting, and then be able to stimulate my creativity through color and everything I use,” Genier said.

She said that part of her inspiration came from nature, and she pointed out the beaded purple and blue flowers on the dress.

“They remind me of my childhood. They remind me of Kuujjuaq, I used to pick them all the time.”

She said that the design and color inspiration also came from her impression of Simon.

“I think, I want to describe how I feel about Mary, her personality, her strength, and her character, you know.”

Grenier also added 24k gold beads to the design. She said it was her honor to be able to work for this costume.

“I mean, it’s not every day that you receive a request like this, and you can work with a designer like Victoria. And, you know, it’s new to both of us,” Garnier Say. “This is an amazing experience and a great honor.”

‘A place in that ceremony’

The gown and jacket were delivered at 5pm on Sunday, the night before the ceremony.

Grenier said that allowing Simon to wear indigenous clothing that clearly came from the north may help other indigenous audiences to see their identity at the ceremony.

“I think it gives people a sense of belonging, like they had a place in that ceremony, they had a place in Mary’s appointment as governor,” she said.

“The whole ceremony is like this. I have never seen anything like this. I don’t think anyone has seen anything like this-it’s incredible to incorporate so much culture into the whole ceremony.”