By Jane Puchniak | @janepuchniak | November 2, 2021 | 6:00am
Indigenous-owned and operated brand, Decolonial Clothing Co. has won The Pitch, a competition open to all startups and entrepreneurs globally. The win means a chance to showcase their work to investors, a $25,000 cash prize and a mentorship with serial entrepreneur and star of CBC Dragons’ Den, Michele Romanow. This is one of the most recent milestones in the Decolonial Clothing success story.
Icons from around the world have been repping the brand and they’ve also hopped on Instagram Live streams with co-Founder and award winning artist, Dakota Bear to talk about the message of decolonization and justice for Indigenous Peoples. The brand has seen support from Marvel star, Mark Ruffalo to Drake’s long time producer, Noah ‘40’ Shebib to Netflix icon, Nathalie Boltt of Riverdale to MSNBC’s Liz Plank to Emma Watson and the list goes on. Decolonial Clothing has also been featured in Cosmopolitan Magazine, Huffington Post and if you watch Netflix series, Coronor or Resident Alien on Hulu, chances are you’ll see a piece of Decolonial on screen.
Founded by life and business partners, Casey Desjarlais and Dakota Bear, the company began in 2020 and soared exponentially breaking a new record this fall when the company hitting the $500,000 mark in sales. This sparked an expansion of Decolonial's warehouse operation and staff growth in several facets of the business.
“We always worked towards being entrepreneurs. We wrote our first business plan on a broken iPhone in 2015. We never dreamed that years later, we would have ten employees, a Dragons' Den mentorship and that we’d be upscaling to a warehouse 10 times the size of our initial operation,” says Co-Founder and Creative Director, Casey Desjarlais.
“We have shipped to almost every continent with orders going out to Sweden, Germany, Ukraine, Australia, Nigeria, all across the United States, Asia, Canada and Australia. People aren’t just investing in the fashion, they are investing in the message behind the brand,” shared Bear. “We believe that it is time for the world to recognize the original peoples of this land and dismantle the colonial systems that have decimated Indigenous People for generations. People are starting to learn the real history and they are getting on board as active allies. Change is happening in the ways of thinking, in politics, in music and in media and it gives me great hope to see this happening. We are proud and honoured for our company to be a part of this movement.”
“As we scale, our goal is to create opportunities to hire and mentor BIPOC youth and support the mental, spiritual, financial and creative health of our community,” added Desjarlais.
Visit decolonialclothing.com to view the latest collection.