Fashion designer has success all sewn up

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She's come a long way from making clothes for her Barbie dolls.

"I used to make clothes for my dolls when I was a little girl. It was always something I enjoyed," said Native fashion designer Patricia Piche about her early start in the fashion industry. " I think it's inherited because two of my aunts and both my mom and grandmother sew."

Piche,from the Cold Lake First Nation, northeast of Edmonton, is an honors graduate in tailoring from NAIT (Northern Alberta Institute of Technology) in Edmonton.

"I got funding from Indian Affairs for post-secondary school and from there I was on my way," she said.

After graduating from the one-year course at NAIT in 1985, Piche worked in the design-house and manufacturing sides of the business. For two years she worked for fashion designer Michelle Mitchell in Edmonton where she learned retail and sewing. From there, she moved on to Number Eleven, a design house owned by hockey player Mark Messier's parents.

"It was a real learning experience because I had never done mass production before," said Piche, who is now based in Bon Accord. "I had two sewers working for me too so I always had to keep them producing."

Piche also took entrepreneur training programs and worked on a business plan until 1990 when she took the plunge. That year, with the help of Aboriginal Business Canada, she founded Patricia Piche Contemporary Fashion Designs, and the business took off.

In 1993, Piche was a top 10 finalist in the first "Winds of Change" Aboriginal Fashion Show in Toronto. She was also a featured designer in the "Winds of Change" Fashion Catalogue produced by the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business.

Piche will be showing some of her work this winter in a six-month exhibit at the Aboriginal People's Gallery in the Provincial Museum of Alberta in Edmonton beginning Nov. 30.

Piche's new factory, which will be based in Bon Accord, will include cutting, sewing, and appliques. Piche will take care of the designing and the business side of the factory. She plans to open the factory in early 1998.

Piche draws on her Cree and Chipewyan roots to produce spring-summer and fall-winter collections. Her specialty is contemporary western Native outerwear, featuring coats and jackets with a distinctly Aboriginal influence. She uses leather, solid color fabric or Navajo blankets and geometric prints from the American southwest. The appliques on the clothing range from stylized eagles to abstract patterns. Piche also makes shirts, skirts and fancy dance clothes, which are worn at dance exhibitions and competitions. The price of the designs vary between $100 and $1,500.

"I don't like to be idle," explained Piche. "I like to always be creating, learning, and gaining knowledge. Running a business is a good challenge, I never get bored because every up and down is a challenge. It' s all about hard work, not giving up and believing in yourself and your product or service."