Luxury Creative Direction & Cultural Strategy
Amanda May Daly is an Anishinaabe creative director, consultant, and fashion stylist operating at the intersection of high fashion, sociocultural advocacy, and Indigenous-led creativity.
“With a career built on disrupting industry standards, my approach is rooted in visual sovereignty. I honour my role as a collaborator and strategist by remaining dedicated to building visual frameworks that are grounded in deep relationships to people, space and place.”
Specializing in luxury Creative Direction and cultural strategy, Amanda is committed to visually bridging the gaps between subculture, Indigenous Futurism, traditional artisanship and high polish fashion media. Her most recent campaign is a vibrant photo bank of non-commercial use images for Youth Friendly North Shore, a campaign helping to build healthy communities where youth aged 12-18 can thrive, reducing the risk of involvement in gang or organized criminal activities. YFNS is a partnership between Bunyaad Public Affairs, The District of North Vancouver, The District of West Vancouver, Squamish Nation, Tsleil-Waututh Nation, the RCMP and Public Safety Canada. A lifelong advocate for inclusion and equity, Amanda was a key architect and advocate in the pivotal conversation around Body Diversity alongside “All Walks Beyond The Catwalk” during the London Fashion Week 25th Anniversary in September 2009. Collaborating with Canadian designer Mark Fast to integrate Curve models onto the luxury runway was a move that fundamentally challenged industry norms and prioritized conversations about inclusive representation.
Her approach is defined by a commitment to empowerment through visibility, ensuring that diversified narratives and bodies are not just seen, but represented with the prestige and agency they deserve. From styling the cast and co-director of Sugarcane for the 97th Academy Awards to her executive consulting roles, Amanda views Creative Direction and Styling as cultural commentary.
A proud daughter of Mattagami First Nation, Amanda’s practice is a direct extension of, and love letter to her lineage. Amanda honours the memory of her musician father Kenny Derasp, the creativity of her grandmother Grace Luke Derasp and the legacy of her Nation through her academic studies and creative practice. Amanda’s ongoing reconnection to culture is a devoted homage to the leadership and activism of her great-grandfathers, Chief Sam Luke and Chief Andrew Luke, whose legacy is etched into the history of the Treaty 9 negotiations. Chief Andrew Luke was the first elected Chief of Mattagami First Nation.
By reclaiming space within the luxury sector, Amanda is mindfully making space for the work of the coming generations. She continues to consult for high-level fashion and public relations clients, collaborating with the current generation of sovereign creative voices, and is developing an original script called Land Based Allies.
More about Amanda’s work can be found by clicking here: #WelcomeToTheMatriarchy
Artists she has worked with
Julian Brave NoiseCat (director, Sugarcane, 97th Academy Awards) Ed Archie NoiseCat (Sugarcane, 97th Academy Awards), Chief Willie Sellars (Sugarcane, 97th Academy Awards), Heather Rae Priest (producer), Johnny Sequoyah, Tantoo Cardinal (Killers of The Flower Moon, directed by Martin Scorsese), Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne (The Convert, directed by Lee Tamahori), Gail Cowan Management, Apple Films, Netflix, Indi City, Francisco Rico, Rafa Peinador, Rebecca Baker Grenier, Jillian Dion, Joe Dion Buffalo, Justin Jacob Louis.
Photographers she has worked with
Brian Bowen Smith, Norman Wong, George Pimentel, Erik Madigan Heck, Davide Cossu, Casey Moore, Georgie Lawson, Kevin Cruz, Victoria Stevens, Audrey Baunez, David K. Shields, Alex Waber.
Styling work published in
It’s Interval Magazine, Elle Canada, Variety Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, Vanity Fair (online), People Magazine (online), The Cut, Go Fug Yourself, APTN News, WWD, Teen Vogue, L.A. Times, GQ
Creative Direction, Photography & Production
In Canada and the US she worked as a stylist, design consultant, and costume designer for film. After moving to London, UK in 2007 she worked with an emerging Canadian designer to launch one of the UK’s most exciting new luxury brands. In 2009, her work with Canadian designer Mark Fast sparked a revolutionary worldwide conversation around body diversity after casting three plus-sized models at a key show at London Fashion Week. She spent 3 years at the label focusing on brand development, marketing, and art direction before leaving to launch NoirLuxe, a creative marketing consultancy. She is an accomplished photographer and Creative Director and has planned events for London Fashion Week and Milan Fashion Week, consulted on special projects and produced photoshoots for major international brands including Malone Souliers, MULO Shoes, Question Everything London, Hunger Magazine, creem magazine, Baileys, Harvey Nichols, Nintendo, Maybelline, Woolmark, Swarovski, Morgans Hotel Group, Topshop, Pinko, Bumble and Bumble, MAC, Lancome, Luminato Festival, TIGI, AOL, and Christian Louboutin.
In 2017 Amanda produced the Sotheby’s Diamonds campaign shot by Erik Madigan Heck featuring actress Diana Silvers.
Her photography work has been published in Harper’s Bazaar UK, British Vogue, Hunger Magazine, Elle Middle East, Slick Mummy Magazine, Brut, Eluxe Magazine, and AlexandAlexa among others.
Advocacy
While in the UK Amanda engaged in water protection work, co-founding Broomfield Pond Swim Society – a community organization seeking to restore and decontaminate the last remaining set of 3 Baroque Water Gardens in the UK, one of which was a swimming lake closed in 1933 due to pollution. The organization seeks to revive wild swimming in Palmers Green, North London and make swimming accessible to a diverse urban audience, many of whom have never swam in freshwater. The initiative is now being led by community group Friends of Broomfield Park.
Amanda has organized and co-organized several London vigils in partnership with Canada House, Trafalgar Square, London, UK: Justice for Colten (2018), a Shoe Memorial to the Victims and Survivors of Canada’s Residential Schools, based on the Vancouver Art Gallery shoe memorial by Tamara Bell (2021), and Candlelight Walk (2021), a candlelight vigil through Westminster, London honouring victims and survivors of colonial violence that brought together Indigenous people and allies from around the globe. These events led to an invitation to moderate a panel talk on Residential Schools for the staff of the High Commission of Canada to the UK to commemorate Indigenous History Month in June 2021. In 2022 Amanda recommended Yasmine Matoaka Fleming-Smith for Ambassador for a Day, an initiative by the Friends of Gender Equality Group UK. Yasmine, a young woman who is mixed British and Cree, raised in the UK, whose family are from Muskoday First Nation, worked alongside High Commissioner Ralph Goodale at Canada House for a day, attending and actively participating in all meetings and events and spoke of her experiences growing up as a young Indigenous woman in the United Kingdom.
Portraits of Amanda May Daly by Kevin Cruz, 2023.
