Fastest fashion Runway show focuses on treasures, not trash By: Conrad Sweatman Posted: 5:24 PM CDT Thursday, Apr. 3, 2025

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This article was published 03/04/2025 (522 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Some of Manitoba’s best-known public figures — including radio host Ace Burpee, activist Mitch Bourbonniere and politician Nahanni Fontaine — walk the catwalk in a fashion show at 109 Higgins Ave. Friday night.

Their outfits experiment with the artistic possibilities of an unusual material: garbage bags.

It may sound like a lighthearted take on the “high concept” stuff of New York Fashion Week, but for all the fun and creativity that surround the Voices’ Garbage Bag Fashion Show, the event raises awareness about some disquieting realities.

“We use art as a tool and the tool that we’re using here is garbage bags, to address the displacement of children in the foster care system.”–Kerri Parnell

“Our mandate at the Graffiti Gallery isn’t necessarily to put pretty pictures on the wall,” says Kerri Parnell, gallery co-ordinator at Graffiti Art Programming (GAP).

“We use art as a tool and the tool that we’re using here is garbage bags, to address the displacement of children in the foster care system.”

The organization is collaborating with Voices: Manitoba’s Youth in Care Network on the fundraiser. The material symbolizes an unpleasant fact: many youths in care are forced to move between homes with their belongings stuffed in garbage bags.

The practice isn’t just inconvenient, it’s dehumanizing.

“We’re talking their prized possessions and they’re being treated like garbage,” says Aerynn Meagher, a manager at Voices, which provides support and advocacy to young Manitobans in and from care.

“We need to stop moving kids with garbage bags because of the trauma that causes.”

Meagher says that after hearing about this year’s show, someone contacted Voices with an offer to donate free luggage — a meaningful gesture. The Graffiti Gallery is also running a raffle at the event with framed photographs of the outfits as a prize to raise funds for Voices.

Taylor, 22, and Tristan, 20, are among a handful of former or current youth in care involved with Voices and this year’s fashion show.

They’re working with Indigenous designers Amy McPherson and Evan Ducharme to craft the garments, which look quite chic, despite using only garbage bags and tape.

“I was thinking that he should be wearing what I wore when I came into care,” says Tristan, explaining why her outfit — which will be worn by 103.1 Virgin Radio personality Burpee — features shorts rather than a skirt.

“At first, I thought it was going to be a struggle, but then when I started doing it, it was really fun.”

Taylor’s outfit, decorated with multicoloured flowers, is dedicated to a foster family with whom she says she developed a very strong connection.

“Taylor’s experience is actually somewhat unique, because a lot of the foster homes are a revolving door,” says Meagher, who also recalls the humiliating experience of moving from placement to placement with her belongings in garbage bags.

In Manitoba, there were nearly 10,000 children in out-of-home care as of 2022 (not including adoption), the highest of all Canadian provinces, and many of these children are Indigenous.

In 2021, Indigenous children accounted for more than half of all foster children in Canada.

Research consistently shows that youth in steady family-based situations tend to have better outcomes than those who remain in long-term institutional care.

Meagher says events such as these help to cultivate the sense of community and kinship that’s often lacking in this system.

“What we try to do is get these youths together and network and build those lasting friendships and know that (they) now belong to a family of choice,” she explains.

While guests are encouraged to dress in formal wear or strike a fashionable look, the fundraiser welcomes everyone. Admission is free with a non-perishable food donation.

“The bare minimum that that we can do is to show up and support their voices, artistry and agency,” says Minister of Families Fontaine, one of three provincial ministers modelling the Voice youths’ creations at the event, along with Bernadette Smith, minister of housing, addiction and homelessness, and Deputy Premier Uzoma Asagwara.

“I’m certain it’s not lost on the public that in in the last couple of years, we’ve had one of the most high-profile examples of Indigenous women being treated as if we are garbage,” Fontaine says, referring to the remains of three murdered women found at the Prairie Green Landfill.

“And I think it’s an opportunity to affirm that Indigenous women are not garbage, that we are survivors (and) sacred, and it’s our right to be safe in our own lands.”

conrad.sweatman@winnipegfreepress.mb.ca