Vancouver Voices: Mahkeebah

Creativity has always been a part of life for fashion, stylist, and racial activist Mahkeebah. A Vancouverite who draws inspiration from the rich nature around the city, she sees the confluence of tech and fashion as important in pushing the art forward. Recognizing the importance of technology in garment production - Vancouver is the birthplace of Arc’teryx and Lululemon, among other technical apparel brands - Mahkeebah is seeing greater female and racially diverse representation in the industry as time goes on.

You're a self-professed Jill of all trades: you're a stylist, a hatmaker, and you have a podcast called That's Trash.  You’re also an outspoken advocate for racial equality. How has your creative journey been?

Oh God, I think creativity has always been a large part of my life. From a really young age, I was always making up music videos, and plays, and fashion shows, and writing little novellas.  I've always enjoyed exploring  my creative side and I feel that everyone is creative - whether they choose to apply it to the arts, business, or whatever it may be.

But to answer your question, my creative journey has been rocky. It's every thrill that you can imagine and every low point that you can imagine. A roller coaster. 

How has Vancouver supported you in your creative journey?

I mean, we live in a place that is so rich with beautiful nature and it’s a big influence for me. I find that a lot of my creativity comes from the things I see around me. Whether it’s the city, or the mountains, or the ocean or whatever.

I also think because Vancouver is such a jewel of tourism that we encounter a lot of different people. It’s always been a huge, huge thing for me to be exposed to different people and cultures. 

What do you think of tech’s role in fashion?

Well, I think particularly working in fashion, I like to say often that there aren't a lot of new ideas and we're always referencing the past when it comes to garment. 

The things that are moving fashion are technical advancements, whether it’s  things like digital fashion shows (which were huge during the pandemic), or different techniques within the actual fabrication of garments, or the fabrics and fibers that we’re using. So, I think that tech and fashion are closely aligned. Within fashion, we are always referencing technology and a lot of designers get a lot of their inspiration from looking to see what’s coming in the future.

Tech and the arts is a very, very happy marriage and they're very symbiotic. You can't have one without the other at this juncture in time. 

How do you think the tech and fashion community in Vancouver could merge? 

Yeah, I think we can both help each other. Like I need someone to help me with my website. So, where you at? 
I think fashion can be known as a very vapid and vain industry.  But If you're just going to talk simply about getting dressed in the morning, I think if you’re someone working in tech, someone within the fashion landscape could help you advance your career by just helping you with properly tailored clothes.

You've created a podcast called That’s Trash which shares your experience as a racialized person in Vancouver. How was a podcast experience for you?

Oh god, I laugh about this a lot because I went into it very naive. 

I originally thought, “Oh, I’ll just use my phone and record and hopefully people will listen to it!” but it turns out there's a lot of backend things. Learning how to use software that I've never used before, or edit things, or, you know, the hot keys within Adobe. 

I realized now that sometimes you should just pay the people who are professionals in their field to just do things for you. I learned a lot, but I've also learned that I should stay in my line with some things.

How has your creative journey been as a racialized person, and as a woman?

Fashion will always have women. Women have always been at the forefront of fashion. Fashion has notoriously been, for a long time, very exclusive. And in terms of even talking about people's bodies, there hasn't been a lot of representation in terms of different body types. 

There is very little representation in the fashion space. I've experienced my own level of racism, and now that I've worked for bigger companies, I've experienced some of the worst racism in the workplace that I’ve experienced anywhere else. And I’ve worked in restaurants for years.

So I think now more than ever there is more space for people to express their voice and their point of view. We're not as far as I would like to see things, but I definitely think at this point of my career I'm seeing more opportunities than I have previously. I don't know if that pertains to people being more aware of how exclusive they've been and trying to bring more people into the conversation, or if I'm just really good at what I do. 

I'd like to think it's the latter and it's not because people are trying to expand their diversity, but I also know that that is part of it. I mean, hopefully, we're constantly moving forward and not going backwards.

Okay, our last question. This one is a fun one. What's your favorite dish in Vancouver?

It’s really hard to choose just one, so I have to pick three. I  really love the chicken strips at Cactus Club. I'm a chicken tenders fanatic. 

There is a sushi roll at the Pacific Rim lounge - it’s a smoked tofu sushi roll. And for my third decision,  I really, really, really always enjoy the fried rice at Pizza Coming Soon. They knock it out of the park every single time.