I have a story in today’s Metro News, a sort of First Nations profile piece that includes designer Angela DeMontigny, footwear company Manitobah Mukluks, eyewear from AYA Accessories and Louie Gong’s Eighth Generation Vans art.

Angela DeMontigney is the group’s veteran designer whose garments have been worn by First Nation celebs such as the lovely singer/songwriter Susan Aglukark, actor Adam Beach and actor/singer/songwriter Tamara Podemski. She’s designing new ensembles for the 2009 Calgary Stampede Royalty and serving as fashion director for a showcase at Harbourfront’s Planet IndigenUS festival this August.

Sean McCormick’s Blue Moose Clothing Company may well be the world’s largest manufacturer of mukluks. The Fleeceline division of the company makes the mukluks, moccasins and other traditional items that are an integral part of Canada’s tourism industry, but it’s the Manitobah arm making the splash. Celebs such as Kate Hudson, Paris Hilton and Kate Moss have been snapped wearing Manitobah’s high-end rubber-soled mukluks, which can go for as much as $1100.

Corrine Hunt is the First Nations artist whose work appears on AYA Accessories’ new Pacific Northwest Collection of reading glasses, sunglasses and frames. A jewelry designer who decided to branch out into custom furniture design because she wanted to try a larger medium, Hunt was invited to work with AYA Accessories by the collection’s creator, Carla D’Angelo Taylor, who spotted her art at a gift show five years ago.

Louie Gong is just four months new to the First Nations fashion scene. His is the quirkiest story of the four:

Nooksack, Chinese, French and Scottish, and a Canadian living in the US, Gong is actually a cultural-identity activist first. He stumbled into a budding career as an artist when he used a new pair of Vans as a canvas in March of this year. “Vans were things other people had when I was growing up,” he explained. “As an adult with my own resources, I thought now I can have Vans. But none of the existing designs like the checkerboard spoke to me or were representative of me, so I bought plain grey.”

The plain Vans just sat in Gong’s living room for a couple of weeks until one night, while he was watching “The Family Guy,” he picked up a shoe and a Sharpie and started to doodle. “My cultural influences just came out.” He wore them to work and kickstarted a demand. Co-workers wanted Vans like his too. And when he posted a photo of his shoes on his personal Facebook page, the 30 or 40 comments the image got in the first hour told him he was onto something. The Facebook fan page he subsequently started has about 2000 members and is still growing.

Gong’s multi-cultural heritage rings a bell for me. I’m Chinese, Portuguese, English and French — a party mix, I like to say. I was born in Trinidad and lived in England and St. Vincent before arriving in Toronto with my family the year I turned seven. I wasn’t the only Asian-esque kid in my grade-school classes, but I was the only one in pretty much all my classes at Carleton University in Ottawa. It didn’t really bother me; our family doesn’t really have strong identity issues either way. We’re more British than anything. Dad was born and raised mostly in England (he had a few early years in Nigeria when his father worked as a tin-mine engineer), where he met my Chinese Mum, who had left Trinidad at 19 for a nursing career at St. Helier hospital in south-west London. (I must ask, but I think she lived in England for about seven years, all told.)

Although my different background wasn’t a big deal for me — I was used to it — I noticed a shift when I returned home after university. On the subway, suddenly more faces were non-white. A couple of years later while I was taking a course at George Brown College, I glanced around the ladies restroom and realized all nine of us in there were of some kind of Asian descent. And then in my first year of magazine world, I met two others who are a similar mix: Chinese mothers of the same dialect and British fathers. That was a big deal, for all three of us, Denise, Lesa and me.

One of the first things we asked ourselves was, “Chinoiserie — can we do it, or will we look like we’re trying too hard?” Chinese-inspired clothing and accessories was a trend that year. Although I can’t remember whether it was Lesa or Denise who asked it, I’ll never forget the question. I think it was the first time we were ever able to ask such a thing of someone (a non-relative) who identified and understood. Neat. And later, on a Coty press trip to NYC, I told Coty Canada president Jeff Wagstaff that Denise, Lesa and I are the same recipe but from different chefs. He probably doesn’t remember, but we do. Same-recipe-different-chef sisters.

These are the things Louie Gong’s personalized Vans make me think about. I also think about “Meking,” the Chinese name my Apo, my mother’s mum, gave me when I was wee (my siblings each have a name from Apo, too). And I think about the faint intention I’ve always had in the back of my mind to get my Chinese name tattooed on my shoulder. One day, maybe. When I figure out how to spell it. In Chinese.

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Toronto’s second set of Anthropologie doors opened quietly at 80 Yorkville last Friday and I’ve not yet been. Instead of popping in for a drool yesterday when I was in the area, I hit an internet café to check e.mails (lugging the laptop around on a multi-appointment day is just foolish). Sheesh.

Then again, in an hour at the internet café I spent just $4. Let’s not speculate on how much larger that money number would have been had I hit Anthro.

The new store’s opening agenda includes customer events such as “Repurposing T-Shirts” on July 29 (take an old tee in for a silk-screening and embellishing workshop with Anthro’s design team) and “Cardi Party” on July 30 (take a cardigan in for a lesson in updating with buttons, trims, changing the silhouette). The July 31 official opening from 7 to 9 pm will benefit the Nature Conservancy of Canada, and include a “Bits & Baubles” workshop on re-working old accessories.

For me, Yorkville is way closer and easier to get to than the Shops at Don Mills location, so I can visit any time, dream-come-true-like. Am fairly certain, however, that such easy accessibility is the beginning of a beautiful love/guilt relationship.

Um… see you there?

Anthropologie, 80 Yorkville Ave., Monday to Wednesday 10 am to 6 pm; Thursday to Saturday 10 am to 8 pm; Sunday 12 pm to 6 pm; 416.964.9700. Image courtesy of Anthropologie.

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Ellen should be a judge again.

Insane, insane choreography as well as dancing (much). In. Sane.

Great dancers move like superhumans.

In my next life I want to be a dancer with killer dancing talent (important to specify).

Can’t wait for So You Think You Can Dance Canada season 2 on August 11. (Canada is where pointe shoes first hit the SYTYCD stage, not the US, by the way.)

Hey, has anyone settled whether there’s a connection between Evan Kasprzak and an audience member who looked like Scott Bakula?

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Well I don’t think I have to rave about this line again, so I’ll get to the point: if you’re a Canada-based subscriber (click here to become one if you aren’t already) and keen on trying this Canadian line of natural skin care, you’ll want to send an e.mail to imabeautygeek@gmail.com with CONSONANT in the subject line. In the body of the email, you’ll want to provide your name, address, age and phone number please (not for nefarious use, I promise).

If you hit all those details, you’ll be eligible to win a beautifully boxed gift of Consonant Body Organic Pure Unscented Foaming Face Wash, Intense Therapy Hand Cream, Body Wash, Body Lotion and Olive Oil Body Soap (an $88 value). Last day to enter the random draw is Sunday July 26th.

Whatcha waiting for?

Consonant Body is available at The Bay and Sears national flagship stores, at specialty boutiques and via consonantbody.com.

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Consonant Body makes me want to redecorate. Or maybe own a bright-white and airy body-care boutique in the Hamptons, rather like the village shop Sandra Bullock’s character Sally Owens had in Practical Magic (the last movie in which Nicole Kidman looked naturally, ethereally beautiful).

In addition to its natural ingredients and appealing textures, what makes the Canadian brand are the packaging’s uncomplicated lines, sharp design, and cheeky-smart (rather than cutesy) flatter-the-consumer messaging on the modern apothecary labels. The edited collection features just two choices for body wash and body moisturizer, mild Spearmint & Sage and Pure Unscented, and elegant, natural soaps in the same, as well as in Vanilla & Clove, Goat’s Milk, and Canadian Prairie Grains (a scrubby bar).

I particularly like presentation of the soap: neatly folded in crisp parchment paper, tucked into a spare, slide-sleeve carton, and accompanied by a thin loofah slice to serve as in-shower skin buffer or soap rest.

Newest in the line is an extension of the Pure Unscented range. The Foaming Face Wash ($18) is formulated with niacinamide (a version of Vitamin B5 and a happy-skin hero for its ability to shore up the skin’s moisture levels and offer antioxidant support), tea tree oil (a natural astringent) and grapeseed oil (also an antioxidant and regeneration booster). The Intense Therapy Hand Cream ($20) is rich with moisturizing shea and cocoa butters, glycerin and soothing natural extracts.

Consonant Body marries good-for-you with accessible, good-for-your-image messaging. At $12 for soap, $16/$28 for 250 mL and 500 mL body wash sizes respectively, and $22/$42 for body lotion, the good-looking line also hits a price point that lends itself nicely to gifting, in an affordable-luxury way.

It’s getting so good to be a natural woman.

Consonant Body is available at The Bay and Sears national flagship stores, at specialty boutiques and via consonantbody.com.

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