One to Watch: Interior Designer and Textile Artist Destiny Seymour

Anishinaabe interior designer Destiny Seymour spent her first decade in the industry working on commercial projects built for education and community (think university housing, libraries and daycare centres). But as she curated textiles and furniture for each space, Seymour struggled to find the right materials.

€œThere weren€™t any fabrics that represented the history of Manitoba, and Indigenous people, in a respectful way,€ remembers the Winnipeg-based designer. The Manitoba Museum is full of pottery, stoneware and bone tools crafted by Indigenous makers€”but that's all behind glass. So Seymour took her first screen-printing class.

In 2016, the designer launched her first Indigo Arrows collection: a series of tea towels and pillows printed with patterns inspired by Indigenous artifacts. Each piece has an Anishinaabemowin name (the Bezhig pillow, for example, means €œnumber one,€ and the motif comes from a 400-year-old elk antler scraper).

Now she's expanded to drum stools, quilts and greeting cards; a collaboration with another Manitoban company, Freed, was picked up by Urban Barn last fall. 

Despite her studio's growth, all of her products are still crafted in Winnipeg. €œTo see Indigenous designs at such a large scale, and to be able to purchase them in a retail store, is really important,€ says Seymour. €œWhen I was in school, I didn€™t see any Indigenous designers in magazines. The goal is for us to be celebrated and to see ourselves represented, not just in a museum.€ Mission accomplished.

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