Saskatoon Indigenous boutique collaborating with Roughriders

An Indigenous- and female-owned boutique is making big waves around the country.

Saskatoon’s Awasis Boutique has made a big name for itself in the last five years, and now the business is gearing up for a collaboration with the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders.

“It’s a true honour. The biggest thing in doing collaborations is just acting on reconciliation, sharing that space, leaning in (and) learning,” said Awasis Boutique’s CEO and founder, Christine Marie. “This collab is just another example of that.”

Details of the project are a secret for now, but Marie said she’s excited as the big reveal approaches. She said updates will be shared on the boutique’s social media pages.

Awasis Boutique started five years ago, when Marie took some time off from her teaching career to raise her two sons. The business first started as a fashion line for children, but quickly started catering to adults as well.

“I noticed a gap in the market when it came to Indigenous baby and kids’ apparel, so I gave it a shot and was very warmly welcomed from the community,” said Marie.

“We’ve expanded our product line to keep up with demand, and here we are five years later just continuing to ride the wave.”

Awasis Boutique gained a lot of popularity when the clothing lines were noticed by Canadian television influencer Jillian Harris.

Harris and Marie created a shirt in a collaboration for Harris’ “Jilly Box” subscription service. The shirts spread the message that “Every child matters.”

“There’s just so much learning and power in a product like that,” said Marie. “It truly created this wave from coast to coast.”

The boutique originally made 1,000 shirts for the campaign. The demand ended up being so large that over 6,000 shirts were needed. At the end of the campaign, they donated $28,000 to residential school survivors.

Marie said her business is all about making members of the Indigenous community feel comfortable in their identity. Many of the clothing items feature writing in the Cree and Michif languages.

“Not being proud of who I was, being ashamed of my skin colour, that’s the heartbeat behind this business,” said Marie.

She said she wanted “to make sure little ones that had similar stories and backgrounds to mine could be proud of their culture.”

Marie said she likes to use her clothing to support good causes, and said the business has donated a total of $90,000 to the community.

Marie said there are many more projects in the works for Awasis Boutique in the next few months, and the collaboration with the Roughriders is just the beginning.