On the evening of Wednesday, April 8th beginning at 6:00pm, acclaimed seamstress Victoria Okpik provided tips and tricks for how to cut and attach fur trim such as fox to parkas, amautiit, and other garments, as well as showed us how to make fur pom-poms, during a one-hour long live sewing workshop.

Materials: fox fur or similar; needles and thread; thimble; small piece of cardstock or cardboard; and cutting tool (not scissors: fur cutter, exacto knife, or sharpened ulu). 

This workshop used Zoom. This workshop, like every De-ICE-olation workshop, is free.

Originally from Quartaq, Nunavik, designer Victoria Okpik now works and resides in Montreal, QC. After becoming the first Inuk to graduate from LaSalle College’s Fashion Design Program in 1999, she spent 19 years as a seamstress and designer with Nunavik Creations, a Makivik Corporation-owned company until its 2017 closure. During that time, she also contributed bi-annually to the design and creation of the Team Nunavik parkas for the Arctic Winter Games from the year 2000 onwards. She was also among many Canadian artists and designers that gifted original works and textiles to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after he first took office in 2015, and presented him with a sealskin vest at the 2016 Northern Lights trade show in Ottawa.

Between the closure of Nunavik Creations and the founding of her own label, Okpik Designs in December 2019, Okpik continued to have no shortage of high-profile customers. In 2018, she was commissioned by Canadian astronaut and physician David Saint-Jacques to create a sealskin bracelet to accompany Saint-Jacques on a 2019 mission to the International Space Station. She is also the designer behind the ensemble worn by singer Elisapie Isaac to the 2019 Polaris Prize award show. Outside of her speciality commissions, Okpik specializes in parkas, handbags and accessories in traditional and Commander materials.