INUK 360: Being Unique In Indigenous Craft

Small Business Canada

INUK 360 is an Arctic couture 100% authentically Inuvialuk made in the Northwest Territories, Canada.

An Entrepreneur

Inuk is an Inuvialuk multidisciplinary designer. She is an educator and inspirational speaker who advocates using sustainably harvested arctic furs. Through lived experience, Inuk strongly advocates breaking the silence on domestic violence, mental health, bullying, and MMIW. 

Inuk was born, raised, and lives in the Northwest Territories, Canada. She is also a third-generation Indian residential school survivor, a knowledge keeper, a plus-size model, a social media influencer, and a role model. In addition, she has 30 years of experience as a traditional and contemporary designer and master Caribou hair tufter. 

Creativeness has and continues to run through her family’s bloodlines for generations. Inuk refuses to waste this natural talent she was born with and has been creating since she was a little child. 

Even during her sick days as a teenager, she dreamed of designing and collaborating with designers like Calvin Klein. Today, Inuk has turned her dreams into collaborations with like-minded designers, artists and companies with her social media brand Inuk360. 


A Dream Fulfilled 

Inuk360 uses sustainably harvested arctic furs and leathers such as traditionally tanned moose/caribou hide, arctic fox, seal skin, wolf, musk ox, and fish skin leather through her self-taught tan process. She also uses driftwood she or her mum picked from the shores of the Mackenzie River and antlers from Ingning.

Inuk360 can be found in homes across Canada, every territory and province, several US states, and even in Sweden, Germany, South Africa, and Luxembourg.

In recent years, the ongoing pandemic and the damage on Inuk’s hands made her pivot her social media brand. 

During the pandemic, Inuk asked for help purchasing a laptop and was gifted one from a stranger in Ontario. With the gifted laptop, Inuk began learning basic tai chi lessons, self-taught how to tan fish skin and created an online storefront for Inuk360. 

The website has encouraged Inuk to amplify and collaborate with others. It has taught her that she still has huge dreams to live out. For example, she collaborated with PENN Hermes, Louis Vuitton, and Jean Paul Gaultier, to name a few.

Inuk learned at an early age how precious life is. These lessons, and her life givers’ raising her to be her own champion and stand on her own two feet, helped her become the person she needed in her life as a child, a young adult, and now. 

Life has taught Inuk to do the work needed to succeed, do the things she loves, and assist where she can. She grew up in an environment where she was encouraged to dream the biggest dreams for herself and to roll up her sleeves and work hard to live those dreams. 

Inuk considers it a blessing to bring education and creations to life through her mind, heart, and hands, from her sub-arctic home. To learn more about their products, visit the website at https://www.inuk360.com/.  

Indigenous art has always stayed true to its culture. To read more about such enterprises, subscribe to Indigenous SME Business Magazine, and for the latest updates, check our Twitter page @IndigenousSme.

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