Fashion designer Lauryn Cook says she wants to know why her models have yet to receive payment for working at an Indigenous fashion show held in Regina earlier this fall.
Models from around the Prairies participated in the FashioNATIVE runway show at the DoubleTree hotel and conference centre in Regina, held Oct. 10 to 12.
Cook, who owns High Heat Salon and Boutique in Saskatoon, brought 10 models to walk the runway.
She said the models travelled for hours from northern Saskatchewan and Edmonton to attend. They also paid for their own accommodations. In return, Cook said models were promised $100 per runway walk.
"Some of them walked eight times," Cook said. "That's $800."
The event's co-ordinator, Chelsa Racette, told CBC that the promised payment was always $100 per model, not per walk.
Crystal Dreaver, a model from Muskoday First Nation, told CBC that her agent said she'd get paid $100 for each time she walked the runway.
"There were no contracts for us," Dreaver told CBC. "But we were told that we were to be paid $100 per walk."
CBC obtained a copy of the designer's contract, which states each model would receive $100 for participating in the fashion show, but doesn't mention a set amount per walk.
The designer's contract mentions that models would be paid $100 each for participating. (Submitted by Lauryn Cook)Dreaver said she wasn't concerned about not being provided a contract, as fashion shows she's attended in the past have followed through with verbal promises.
"I didn't ask for any of that because most of the time when we are told something, that's what usually goes," Dreaver said. "We never actually had to deal with anything like that before."
Despite the confusion over how much money the models were set to receive, the designer's contract states models should have at least received $100 each.
A group chat between Dreaver and other models shows multiple people are still waiting to receive any money from the event.
Crystal Dreaver and multiple other models discuss waiting for payment after participating in the FashioNATIVE fashion show in Regina. (Facebook)Dreaver told CBC that the event was disorganized and made her rethink participating in any future events organized by Racette.
"I feel like that was a really bad experience," Dreaver said. "After experiencing everything that we did at FashioNATIVE, I'm just gonna take it easy on the fashion shows."
Almost two months later, Cook's models say they're still waiting for payment.
Lauryn Cook wants to know why her models have yet to be paid. (Halyna Mihalik/CBC)Cook said she reached out to Racette several times to ask for payment and has not received a response.
Racette told CBC News that she hopes to be able to pay the models soon, but is waiting for final grant payments to come through after submitting her final report. She said she communicated to models and designers after the event that "grants can take awhile."
Racette told CBC she only promised a flat rate of $100 to each person, not for each walk across the runway, and models may have misunderstood that.
"It's just $100, just a flat rate [of] $100."
The model casting call Chelsa Racette posted on her Facebook page as she began organizing the event. (Submitted by Crystal Dreaver)Racette confirmed to CBC that she has not yet paid some models and vendors.
"There's a lot of new people in the industries who don't know about funding and how it works, and how it can go absolutely right or it can go upside down in an instant."
Racette said she's considering taking out a personal loan to pay the vendors and models.
Cook said some of the models were as young as 10 or 12 years old, and it's disheartening to have their first time in the industry be a negative one.
"I've talked to a lot of parents and they said that they had paid their daughters so that they didn't have to tell them that they got ripped off," she said.
Cook said she also paid each model a $20 tip as consolation for not getting paid by Racette, and didn't get paid for her own time styling each model.
Designers had to pay a $250 fee to secure their spots at the event. Cook's contract states she would be refunded the amount after the event. She told CBC she's still waiting for the refund.
Racette confirmed to CBC that designers were required to pay a refundable $250 deposit to attend the event.
The contract outlines that each designer had to pay a refundable $250 to secure their spot. Cook says she and others never got their refunds. (Submitted by Crystal Dreaver)Cook said she was also verbally promised $500 for her work styling each model, money she hasn't received. She told CBC the amount was originally $1,000 and was continuously lowered.
Racette told CBC that she had promised designers $500 for participating in the event.
Cook said Racette has since stopped replying to her messages about that promised payment.
Small Indigenous business owners also out moneyModels aren't the only ones who say they haven't been paid.
The three-day event featured small business owners selling beadwork and jewelry.
Tenielle Bird, owner of Pihtikwe Market in Saskatoon, organizes opportunities for small businesses to showcase their work in Saskatchewan.
She said she partnered with Racette to bring vendors to the fashion show, but the event was not as advertised.
"I feel like it was really deceptive and really dishonest," Bird said. "It gave me a big learning experience."
Tinielle Bird runs Pihtikwe Market, a space for small vendors to showcase their work. She's upset that her vendors have yet to receive money they were promised. (Halyna Mihalik/CBC)She said the event was pitched to vendors as a three-day opportunity, but it was essentially condensed into just one day. Bird told CBC that no customers showed up on the Friday, since there was no advertisement alerting the public that an event was being held at the hotel.
She said vendors' only successful day was Saturday, the day of the runway walk, when they worked 10 hours.
Bird said Racette cancelled Sunday's market and told vendors to head home.
Racette told CBC that she cancelled the last day because not enough vendors were set up.
"People kept backing out of the fashion show for family or travel reasons," she said.
"We only had a certain amount of designers showcased, so we just stated it to one day. And the agreement was for me to reimburse partial payment for the vendors because they paid so much money for three days and they only got the two days."
Bird told CBC that vendors paid $250 to $300 each for a table, along with covering their own mileage and hotel costs.
She said vendors were told they'd be partially refunded to make up for the time they had lost, but that they haven't received that money yet.
"I was hired for only $500 but I didn't get paid for that," Bird said. "I was like, 'It's OK, you don't have to pay me. You can give me the money though, and I'll forward that to the vendors for one-third of the time that they came here.' But they didn't get it. I didn't get it."
Bird said Racette has stopped replying to her messages.
Where did the money go?Racette said this was her first time organizing an independent event, but she has been putting on fashion shows for international Indigenous organizations for years.
She said the FashioNATIVE show in October cost $130,000. Racette told CBC that she hasn't received enough grant money to pay back the models and vendors. Now that the final report on the event has been submitted, she should get more funds shortly, she said.
"I wasn't going to be able to pay all the models or all the designers out of the front end of the sponsorship that I got," Racette said. "Grants can take a while. And I communicated with the designers and some of the models in a group chat that I'm in, stating that I messed up on the budget."
Dreaver told CBC she was under the impression that Racette did have enough grant money to pay the models.
"Chelsa herself said that she did receive $70,000 and she's waiting for the other $30,000," Dreaver said.
Racette did not give CBC clear information on which grants she's still waiting to receive.
CBC found one grant for $97,000 and another for $20,000 on the Canada Council for the Arts grant recipient website from 2024-2025. The site states the money was awarded to 'Indigenous Fashion Week' in Regina.
Canada's Council for the Arts grant recipient page from 2024-2025 includes money for an Indigenous fashion week held in Regina. (Canada Council for the Arts)Racette told CBC that only the $20,000 grant, which she received for travel expenses for a different show over a year ago, is hers. In an interview with CBC in October, prior to FashioNATIVE, she said the Canada Council for the Arts was one of the grant providers for this year.
The Canada Council for the Arts told CBC in a statement that the grant for $97,000 was awarded for hosting the FashioNATIVE event during the fiscal year of 2024-25.
CBC has confirmed that SaskTel, one of the sponsors, paid Racette $1,000.
"It was not enough to cover the entire event," Racette said.
There were time-sensitive payments that needed to be made with the money she did have — "The venue, the food, photography, the marketing, the performers," she said.
Bill Stevenson, the photographer for the show, posted on Facebook that he has not yet received payment.
He told CBC that as someone who works in the arts, he knows how long grant money can take to come in. He confirmed that more funds typically get distributed after receipts are filed in a report.
"Generally, it's a 70/30 split," Stevenson said. "Some [grants] can be a pretty quick turnaround. Some of them can take months."
Racette said she cut off communication on Facebook, where she had previously been talking with those who worked at the show, and recently asked that people only contact her through email or her phone number. She has continued posting about her personal life on the social media platform.
"I have communicated to tell them that I have not been able to get the rest of my grants or my sponsorship yet," Racette said.
"Once I do, everybody else will get reimbursed and then the models and designers will get paid."