Turning pain into power: How a Cree fashion designer is working to inspire Indigenous youth
CBC
When Stephanie Gamble watched her mother model the first dress she made, smiling wide and walking an imaginary runway, she knew that was what she wanted to keep doing in her life.
A Plains Cree single mother from Beardy’s & Okemasis Cree Nation near Duck Lake, Sask., Gamble has lived many lives.
Her Cree name is Piyesiwok-Kitow Piyesiw Iskew, which means Thundering Thunderbird Woman.
Growing up, she was surrounded by addiction and trauma, surviving time in foster care and her brother’s overdose death. She raised her siblings and became a mother, grandmother and mentor to many Indigenous youth, women and two-spirit people.
“I basically turned my pain into power,” Gamble said in an interview in Saskatoon while she was in the city to design outfits for a youth empowerment fashion show.
“I needed a way to heal — and fashion was my outlet,” she said.
Amidst the addiction, family instability and intergenerational trauma that surrounded her, she "had no one to turn to … but myself and prayer,” she said.
She said she wanted to find a way to get out of that life of struggle, to heal and create a new life full of positivity, possibilities and generational health and wealth.
“Really just get out of the victim mentality and have a victorious mentality,” she said.
Her move into the fashion world started with a gift: a sewing machine and a bucket of fabric. Watching her mom model her first creation was empowering, she said.
“This is what I need to do for women who went through so much in their life, to give them that empowerment and that transformation and that inspiration."
Her first fashion show was in Saskatoon, where she lived most of her life. But soon her designs began travelling far beyond Saskatchewan, all the way to New York, Italy and France.
She made the tough decision to move away from Saskatoon after her brother's death left her in deep grief. She was committed to giving her kids a good life, away from addiction and trauma, so she packed up her family and moved to Calgary.
Gamble brings Indigenous young people with her wherever she goes. Some have never left Saskatchewan or been on a plane before.
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