Indigenous Designers Shine Front and Center in ‘North of North'

Reda took a parka-first approach to outfit construction, creating sketches for each core character and sending them to local artists throughout the Arctic. One of his favorite parkas is the long purple ‘Mother Hubbard’ coat we see on Siaja in the first episode, created in collaboration with costume consultants Pia Churchill and Melissa McDonald. “The fur around the hood is a combination of wolf and wolverine woven together to create a sunburst pattern, which is a really ancient pattern that not very many people know how to do anymore,” Reda explains. Another standout parka is Siaja’s half maroon, half floral number, adorned with a hand-dyed burgundy sealskin trim. “I love that combination of almost an old chintz fabric, in combination with the kind of sturdy and utilitarian parka fabric,” Reda says. “It's kind of this soft and hard contrast between the two.” 

Siaja completes every outfit with a pair of intricate, dangly earrings sourced from Indigenous designers. “[Sometimes Inuit women will] start with a pair of earrings and coordinate a whole look around them to match,” Reda says. His order of operations took the inverse, while still privileging the jewelry. For season two, Reda ended up sourcing hundreds of pairs of earrings to ensure that every woman had a pair, or two or three.

Reda enjoyed mixing contemporary trends into otherwise traditional Arctic wear. “If we had done this show 30 or 40 years ago, pre-online shopping, it would have been a very different experience,” Reda explains. “But because of how we live now, everyone is able to order things online to create looks.” For Siaja’s outfit at the ‘Bridgerton’-inspired Winter Ball, she layers a corseted red bodice over an off-the-shoulder gauzy white chiffon dress. While the dress was custom-built for the show, Reda commissioned Indigenous artist Heather Dickson to create a matching earring and choker set from tufted caribou, seal skin, rawhide, and feathers. For the back of the dress, he implemented a design inspired by a caribou’s mouth palate. “[The caribou] shape is used a lot in Inuit clothing, and so I took that inspiration and added it to her ball gown,” Reda says.

When Siaja travels to Toronto to meet her sister, Olivia (Kesha Allurut), her wardrobe adopts a modern edge without betraying her proudly-Inuk aesthetic. “When you're in a big city in the middle of winter, it's very grey, and so I wanted to make it feel like she wasn't in Ice Cove anymore,” Reda says. For the duration of her time in the city, she wears all-black outfits, adorned with sleek fur or feathers, and a “sleek modern take on the parka” in a fitted turquoise silhouette.