At Vancouver Fashion Week, Ay Lelum marks 10 years as the runway embraces global and Indigenous design

What started out as boutique shows put as part of Vancouver’s underground music scene in the 1990s, Vancouver Fashion Week has now become an international showcase for global and local fashion designers. 

As organizers prepare for the launch of its fall/winter season show on April 8, the event continues to focus on global diversity, said founder Jamal Abdourahman.

“I’ve spent most of my life here, and what I know is diversity. This is normal. This is Vancouver's example. This is what Vancouver offers,” he said. “Vancouver is a city that really celebrates other cultures, promotes other cultures and promotes all of us.”

Running since 2001, this season’s week-long Vancouver Fashion Week event features more than 40 designers from 10 countries.

Heading the lineup is Japan’s aim/aimme from Sankei Studio, which combines “contemporary elegance rooted in Japanese craftsmanship,” and Korea’s Blue Tamburin, which “blends heritage techniques with modern design,” according to a statement released by the organizers.

There will also be a showcase from Vancouver Community College’s fashion programs and from local designers Alex S. Yu, Eduardo Ramos, and Maria Augusta. Abdourahman said they also make an effort to spotlight emerging talent, which is represented this season by Vancouver-based designer Bahar Kianpour and Chinese designer Zhang Peng from Jumper Zhang.

When looking at what work to showcase each season, Abdourahman said he looks for designers who are doing something “different and futuristic” and generally have good taste.

“Also, it doesn't have to be something that I'm into,” he said. “As long as I can tell there is so much effort in the presentation, creating the product, everyone deserves that attention and that time. So that's what I look at. But they are all artists.”

From the beginning, Abdourahman has also made it a priority to hold space for Indigenous designers to showcase their work. This season’s show features a 10-year retrospective of standout pieces from Coast Salish design house Ay Lelum, who first showed at Vancouver Fashion Week in 2018.

“They came in as one family — mom and dad and sisters,” said Abdourahman. “They've always been a blessing to work with.”

A family-run fashion house, Ay Lelum was founded in 2016 by sisters Aunalee Boyd-Good and Sophia Good, who then debuted their first couture collection at Vancouver Fashion Week two years later.

Featuring artwork from their father and brother, the late Dr. William Good ts’usqinuxun and the late W. Joel Good ts’usqinuxun, the collection — then, and in all the years since — was also informed by the design and mentorship of their mother, Sandra Moorhouse-Good thul te lada.

While putting this first collection together for Vancouver Fashion Week, they were asked to use original music for the show, said Aunalee.

“We went and sat down with Joel, and we were like, ‘What are we going to do?’ We need some beats,” she recalled. “And he was just like, ‘Well, go see Rob the Viking. He's back in town.’” 

A Nanaimo-based producer, Rob the Viking is best known as one-third of the Canadian hip hop group Swollen Members. This collaboration with the family started them on a journey of reconnection with their Snuneymuxw songs and language that has now spanned a decade.  

“That started our entire music trajectory,” said Aunalee. The family recorded original music for every show since, and their 10 year retrospective will feature a compilation of their greatest hits along with their most iconic looks.

“We have this massive couture closet with so many pieces that have been on the runway between Vancouver to New York and Paris,” she told Vancity Lookout, from her retail storefront space in Nanaimo where she was selecting pieces for the show. 

Aunalee said she was surprised at how well different pieces from separate collections were coming together in new combinations.

“It all just blends and works together. I think that what it comes down to is that the family are all from the same line of training, from the great grandfathers,” she said. “Everything just lines up and works together. Like, we have a cape from one collection and it actually looks fabulous on a dress from another collection.” 

 Going through all the pieces and looks from the last ten years has been an emotional experience, says Aunalee, as the family is still deep in the grief of losing William to cancer last July and Joel suddenly in 2024.

“Joel was here at our very first showcase which was this runway right here, Vancouver Fashion Week 2018,” she said in a runway tribute to Joel at an Ay Lelum show in 2024. “He was our feature artist and he was also in our music track, the one and only time. He painted our earrings, because my sister and I tried to do it and he came along and laughed at us and redid them all. And the last showcase we did was here, at Vancouver Fashion Week, and he walked the runway with me.”

Abdourahman, who was close with William, has been supportive of the family from the very beginning, said Aunalee.

“They've respected all of our requests for anything cultural we've wanted to do, and for having our own models,” she said. “They're very strong supporters of the arts and community, and I don't think they really get that much acknowledgement for the work that they do.” 

Vancouver Fashion Week runs from April 8 to 12 at the David Lam Hall, Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Vancouver.