Looking doing good: Treana Peake's charitable work in South Sudan directly ... - National Post

Obakki’s fall collection was directly inspired by Treana Peake’s work with the communities in South Sudan, where she helps drill wells.

“It’s a part of the world that has been forgotten, what has happened to the people over the last 40 years,” the creative director explained on a visit to her Toronto sales agency. “It’s their chronological timeline painted on the canvas I know best, through fashion.”

This season, Peake has chosen to donate 100% of the proceeds from Obakki’s 10 top-selling garments to new water wells there. For the Vancouver label’s New York runway presentations, she hires South Sudanese models such as Alek Wek and Ajak Deng, who left when she was five, and Mari Malek, who left in her teens.

“Your story has to be authentic — half the time I feel like people are telling stories that are not authentic or are not as passionate about the cause as they could be.”

Here, as told to Nathalie Atkinson, are her motivations and goals.

Water, how and why: “It’s still a very volatile place in the world — there’s a lot of tension in a country that has been raised in violence, 40 years of civil war. When I go, I work with the UN, in terms of getting their data on which zones to avoid and where to drill our water wells so we aren’t  creating any new conflicts. We find out where there are refugees or a high incidence of guinea worms or conflict zones where tribes fight over water. We use all that to establish our own criteria for where to drill. I present it in a very artful creative composition, but it’s very laid out and organized and strategic on the development side!”

Fashion donations: “I’ve always been a really creative person and my passion has always been in philanthropy. For many years I walked in these two separate sets of shoes — kind of did the fashion stuff and the philanthropic stuff, but I wasn’t getting the results I wanted and wasn’t even really personally fulfilled because something was missing. At one point I decided that I needed to give my fashion a purpose, and apply creativity to my development work, so I put them together and it came together in this fall collection.”

Inspiration that’s allusive: “Using a palette of wheat and soil, or the print of coarse lines and vectors that represent the tribal scarring across the land: Some of it’s direct, some of it is more meaningful, some of it is just the vibe. We also did custom prints that are the story of the North and the South and it’s fighting, all over oil — all that opposition, the
contrast, almost literal black and white. Every piece tells a story somehow.”

Subtle, not literal, interpretation: “The coppery orange signature Obakki draped dress has a little knot that reminds me of the women there, who just tie a knot to tie something on because what they wear is often just bolts of fabric and creative wrapping and winding. I didn’t want to come back and do this crazy tribal line that people who liked the cause and the story wouldn’t wear. Other garments are tribal because of the shape — like colour-blocked neckline details that represent arrows. They like it, it’s on trend, it’s fashion but you put it on, there’s a story and as you’re wearing it you know you’ve contributed to the drilling of more water wells.”

Does the consumer care? “I think the consumer is skeptical about these things, certainly. That’s why I chose 10 pieces — it’s a believable number for people to understand, in a neat little package.”

And the fashion flock?  “I was invited to speak to the U.S. Senate because they wanted to hear a different voice and how I’ve merged that voice, fashion, with philanthropy. A lot of people are thinking — and my husband [Our Lady Peace guitarist Ryan Peake] is one of them — the fashion people, are they going to care? I think they can care and maybe they simply haven’t been presented it in the right way before. Musicians tell their story through music and we tell it in clothes.”

One person’s edgy is another’s homespun: “The cutout swagged skeleton dress? It’s actually the most traditional South Sudanese piece that we have! It’s from the Dinka tribe, you see it at some of the cattle camps. The traditional Dinka bodices there are made out of ropes of little glass beads, so we just did more of a modern interpretation.”

Style as narrative, and metaphor: “The gown has details of the fur sequin trend, which is hot for fall. The fur represents the tribalism and the copper in it represents all the bullets that are left scattered in the ground, embedded in the earth after 40 years of war. It’s the heaviness of where they came from, and the light that’s hopeful, renewal. Everybody’s ready to rejoice but there is still the cloudy transition period.”

Local applies to both company headquarters and development work: “It’s not a huge international staff with degrees in NGO: We hire local field staff, they’re all South Sudanese. That rolls money back into the community — and all of the people that drill our wells are local Sudanese companies. We also set up community water committees so that they help make decisions. We make everything in our factory in Vancouver. I do it because I believe it’s important for a variety of different reasons but I’m not using it as a shtick. However, if they fall in love with the brand and then learn that we produce everything here, then that’s even better. It’s the gravy.”

Less that does more: “Nobody here ‘needs’ another dress. I’ve seen the minimum that people can live with over there! But here, people do buy and continue to buy, and I have a fashion company. I don’t consume a lot of clothes, but where I think our new consumer is going is to a place where things are going to matter — so if they’re going to buy a jacket like our silhouette, which was on every runway, why not buy the one that is going to contribute to something? Fashion with a purpose.”

Obakki’s fall collection was directly inspired by Treana Peake’s work with the communities in South Sudan, where she helps drill wells.

“It’s a part of the world that has been forgotten, what has happened to the people over the last 40 years,” the creative director explained on a visit to her Toronto sales agency. “It’s their chronological timeline painted on the canvas I know best, through fashion.”

This season, Peake has chosen to donate 100% of the proceeds from Obakki’s 10 top-selling garments to new water wells there. For the Vancouver label’s New York runway presentations, she hires South Sudanese models such as Alek Wek and Ajak Deng, who left when she was five, and Mari Malek, who left in her teens.

“Your story has to be authentic — half the time I feel like people are telling stories that are not authentic or are not as passionate about the cause as they could be.”

Here, as told to Nathalie Atkinson, are her motivations and goals.

Water, how and why: “It’s still a very volatile place in the world — there’s a lot of tension in a country that has been raised in violence, 40 years of civil war. When I go, I work with the UN, in terms of getting their data on which zones to avoid and where to drill our water wells so we aren’t  creating any new conflicts. We find out where there are refugees or a high incidence of guinea worms or conflict zones where tribes fight over water. We use all that to establish our own criteria for where to drill. I present it in a very artful creative composition, but it’s very laid out and organized and strategic on the development side!”

Fashion donations: “I’ve always been a really creative person and my passion has always been in philanthropy. For many years I walked in these two separate sets of shoes — kind of did the fashion stuff and the philanthropic stuff, but I wasn’t getting the results I wanted and wasn’t even really personally fulfilled because something was missing. At one point I decided that I needed to give my fashion a purpose, and apply creativity to my development work, so I put them together and it came together in this fall collection.”

Inspiration that’s allusive: “Using a palette of wheat and soil, or the print of coarse lines and vectors that represent the tribal scarring across the land: Some of it’s direct, some of it is more meaningful, some of it is just the vibe. We also did custom prints that are the story of the North and the South and it’s fighting, all over oil — all that opposition, the
contrast, almost literal black and white. Every piece tells a story somehow.”

Subtle, not literal, interpretation: “The coppery orange signature Obakki draped dress has a little knot that reminds me of the women there, who just tie a knot to tie something on because what they wear is often just bolts of fabric and creative wrapping and winding. I didn’t want to come back and do this crazy tribal line that people who liked the cause and the story wouldn’t wear. Other garments are tribal because of the shape — like colour-blocked neckline details that represent arrows. They like it, it’s on trend, it’s fashion but you put it on, there’s a story and as you’re wearing it you know you’ve contributed to the drilling of more water wells.”

Does the consumer care? “I think the consumer is skeptical about these things, certainly. That’s why I chose 10 pieces — it’s a believable number for people to understand, in a neat little package.”

And the fashion flock?  “I was invited to speak to the U.S. Senate because they wanted to hear a different voice and how I’ve merged that voice, fashion, with philanthropy. A lot of people are thinking — and my husband [Our Lady Peace guitarist Ryan Peake] is one of them — the fashion people, are they going to care? I think they can care and maybe they simply haven’t been presented it in the right way before. Musicians tell their story through music and we tell it in clothes.”

One person’s edgy is another’s homespun: “The cutout swagged skeleton dress? It’s actually the most traditional South Sudanese piece that we have! It’s from the Dinka tribe, you see it at some of the cattle camps. The traditional Dinka bodices there are made out of ropes of little glass beads, so we just did more of a modern interpretation.”

Style as narrative, and metaphor: “The gown has details of the fur sequin trend, which is hot for fall. The fur represents the tribalism and the copper in it represents all the bullets that are left scattered in the ground, embedded in the earth after 40 years of war. It’s the heaviness of where they came from, and the light that’s hopeful, renewal. Everybody’s ready to rejoice but there is still the cloudy transition period.”

Local applies to both company headquarters and development work: “It’s not a huge international staff with degrees in NGO: We hire local field staff, they’re all South Sudanese. That rolls money back into the community — and all of the people that drill our wells are local Sudanese companies. We also set up community water committees so that they help make decisions. We make everything in our factory in Vancouver. I do it because I believe it’s important for a variety of different reasons but I’m not using it as a shtick. However, if they fall in love with the brand and then learn that we produce everything here, then that’s even better. It’s the gravy.”

Less that does more: “Nobody here ‘needs’ another dress. I’ve seen the minimum that people can live with over there! But here, people do buy and continue to buy, and I have a fashion company. I don’t consume a lot of clothes, but where I think our new consumer is going is to a place where things are going to matter — so if they’re going to buy a jacket like our silhouette, which was on every runway, why not buy the one that is going to contribute to something? Fashion with a purpose.”