Fashion
Wearable art bio
Sandra Prest-Froher is a Canadian fashion designer, artist, and natural dyer who lives and works on the traditional ancestral and unceded territory of the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations. She was born in Terrace, BC and currently resides with her family in Victoria, BC. She is a member of the Skwah First Nation in the Fraser Valley.
The Alchemy of the natural world occupies Sandra’s mind. Most days she can be found hiking by the Salish sea, foraging, gathering plants, nuts, seeds and roots for the purpose of creating sustainable fashion. As a First Nations designer, Sandra approaches her creative process with the mindset of her ancestors. Mutual respect for nature, and the world that we all live in. For hundreds of years the Stó:lõ women have gathered from nature to use botanicals for medicine, food, purpose, and ceremony. Through this process Sandra feels connected to her ancestors and grounds herself through this work.
ECO-DYED FASHION LINE
Her textile art is focused on eco-print dyeing using plants on natural fabrics like silk. Sandra uses botanical dyes derived from leaves, bark, stems, seeds, roots, and acorns. She connects with nature by walking, foraging, and gathering organic materials to begin her eco-pigment process. Her works feature plant material both indigenous and non- indigenous to each region from local nature walks to create a dialogue about the land and environment around us. She then makes a mordant using found rusted iron which intensifies the strains in the plant cells or tissue preparations. Through a ritual of care and labour, Sandra bundles the organic materials tightly with string in the fabric before the layers are stacked and steamed over hot water for many hours. Sandra's one-of-a-kind wearable art are a slow cloth approach to textile art and harness environmentally sustainable colour from the local landscape. She sees each creation acting as a conduit of care, collaboration, and re-consideration between human-plant relations.
Froher’s Fashion and Art has been collected throughout Europe and North America.
Sandra Froher is represented by:
Huntingdon Manor in Victoria BC - Nature Jewelry for purchase
