It’s no secret that the fandom can be… intense.
Since the hit Canadian show aired at the start of the year, the steamy hockey series has evolved into a full-on cultural phenomenon – and its stars, Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, are at the centre of all the feral energy. The two actors have now earned top high-fashion contracts (Storrie at Saint Laurent, Williams at Balenciaga), attended the Met Gala, and garnered hundreds of fan accounts devoted to documenting their each and every move.
Their impact in the fashion world is already tangible – but especially so for the smaller, independent designers that they now choose to wear. Case in point: this week in New York, Williams attended the Kate Spade New York Global Summit on Women’s Mental Health event wearing a striking knit cardigan by the Canada-based Indigenous designer Justin Jacob Louis. Just moments after Williams donned his blue-and-black striped “Journey” sweater, which retails for $350, the style instantly sold out online. “It’s pretty surreal,” Louis tells . “It’s cool when somebody who has that much influence sees and appreciates your work.”
Justin Jacob Louis’s Journey sweater.
Photo: Courtesy of Justin Jacob LouisIt was a meaningful moment, too: Williams chose to wear Louis’s sweater on Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Day, which honours the history of Indigenous children who were forcibly taken from their homes and forced into Canada’s residential school system, a movement that lasted until 1996. (He also wore an orange ribbon, the day’s official symbolic colour.) “Love that he’s giving a nod to the day,” one fan wrote on Instagram. “He knows that this will generate sales of the sweater, thus supporting that Indigenous artist as well as just bringing the awareness of Indigenous artists to the forefront.”
For Louis, the impact was instant: The brand gained hundreds of new followers online as a result, and the sighting also earned the designer thousands of dollars in sales. Below, Louis shares more of the story behind how his viral cardigan placement came to be.
I was told that Hudson wanted to support an Indigenous designer for [Canada’s] Truth and Reconciliation Day. He was very intentional about wanting to wear something by an Indigenous designer, and he must have been doing some research and came across my stuff. He found that cardigan, fell in love with it, and wanted to wear it for the red carpet in New York. That’s the coolest thing you can ask for as an Indigenous designer: we make our stuff for everybody! We love to see other people wear it.
What inspired the specific design of that cardigan?
The design is called “The Journey”. It’s actually from a dream I had about being back home at my dad’s. In the dream, I was wondering where all my ancestors were. It was in the wintertime, and when you look over the prairies, you see all of the blue hues from the moon. That’s where the tipi and the colours come from: it represents the time in winter when the moon is big and lights the prairies up. The stars represent where my ancestors were: in the dream, the stars turned into eyeballs to represent my ancestors looking down on me. The sweater represents being far away from home and feeling disconnected, but realising that your ancestors are with you always.
Who reached out from Hudson’s team to get it?
His agent chased us down last week to buy the piece. I get emails like that all the time, and I usually ignore them because I think it’s just people wanting free shit. But then she DM-ed my personal account and said it was for Hudson. I just so happened to have one in my studio in his size, so it worked out. We had more in our warehouse, but it was a last-minute request, and the shipping times were going to take too long. Then someone from his team drove all the way from Vancouver up to my house to pick it up on Sunday.
Wow, the dedication! Then he wore it this week. When did you realise?
As soon as he wore it, people went and bought every single last one of those cardigans. I had almost forgotten about it. Yesterday was Truth and Reconciliation Day, so I wasn’t thinking about trying to sell anything – I was just spending time with my family. I went for a paddle on the lake at 11:30am, and I got back at 12:30pm. I came back and looked at my phone, and all of a sudden my phone was blowing up. I was like, “What’s going on?” Then I realised that he wore it, because fan pages were tagging me on social media. I looked at the cardigans on the site and realised we had $12,000 in sales from it. I had so many DMs, and had a couple hundred followers added. The amount of eyes on all of my social media was pretty wild.
That’s a big sales day. How did that compare, say, to a normal day?
A day like that is the difference between being able to pay some bills at the end of the month. It definitely creates some breathing room for a small business like ours. People think we have a lot of money – we don’t. We’re always grinding. Sometimes, that amount of sales takes half a month, depending on the time of year – so to do that in one day is huge. We’ve had some big sales days before, but usually it’s on a drop day – not a random Wednesday.
So clearly, the impact a celebrity placement can have is huge.
It’s pretty surreal. I’ve had famous people wear [our clothes], and there’s been no movement on the needle. But a person like Hudson, who’s heavily backed in the fashion game, the impact was tangible immediately. It’s cool when somebody who has that much influence sees and appreciates your work. He could have gotten something from anybody, but he specifically made a point to find somebody who’s Indigenous. And he actually purchased it – he didn’t ask for anything free. He actually messaged me directly last night thanking me for making it happen.
So, are you going to restock the cardigan again?
We only had 60 units left in stock – there wasn’t a lot left – but it sold out. I opened up a few pre-orders for it, because the requests kept coming in. But the whole point of the brand is not to overproduce: it’s about exclusive and limited releases. Though, there is a knit hoodie version [of that cardigan] that I have been wanting to release, so maybe I will. If people really appreciate and want something, you want to try your best to get that to them.
What can people score now, if they couldn’t get their hands on the cardigan?
There are some really nice coats and lettermen jackets. A lot of pieces from my first collection are still there, including some hoodies.
Do you hope to dress Hudson again for his season two press tour, perhaps?
I hope so! I’ve stayed in touch. They said he really likes some other things. I gifted him one of the letterman jackets. There might be some opportunities in the future – and I’m 100 percent down.