Indigenous jacket from 1850s Canada turns up in a vintage shop in Barnsley

  • 04 Feb - 10 Feb, 2023
  • Mag The Weekly
  • Mag Files

A jacket thought to be more than 170 years old has turned up in a Barnsley vintage shop. It is believed indigenous tribes from western Canada made it in the 1850s, probably by someone from the Métis or Cree nations. The jacket made its way to the Glass Onion vintage warehouse after travelling thousands of miles from the US during one of the store’s regular imports. Expert vintage graders could tell it was special and uploaded footage of it to TikTok, where people guessed its likely background.

Glass Onion’s head of marketing, Alice Leadbetter, said the jacket ‘stood out’ as soon as she saw it, especially because it was in such ‘great condition’. ‘It’s a piece of history. I wish it could speak and tell the story it’s been on to arrive at our warehouse in Barnsley,’ she said. ‘There are not many pieces which still exist like this in the world today.’ The Glass Onion feel strongly that the jacket should be returned from Barnsley back to representatives of the community that originally made it.

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