Grandmother from Kamloops, B.C., takes turn on Cannes catwalk

She's a 44-year-old mother of six children, and a grandmother to two more.

Now, Racheal Marie Billy can also call herself an international fashion model.

Billy added that title to her resumé when she graced the catwalk at the Cannes Indigenous Arts and Fashion Festival in the world-famous French Riviera resort city.

The festival made its debut for Indigenous Fashion Week earlier this month, and Billy is now back home in Kamloops, B.C., after rubbing shoulders with other Indigenous models and designers from Canada, the United States and other countries.

And here's the kicker: Billy had never modelled before, so to get her start at the centre of the fashion universe was more than a little mind-blowing.

"It was so amazing," she told Sarah Penton, host of CBC's Radio West.

"Every tiny little thing I was so excited for, and to see — like the food, the language, the buildings, the people, the whole environment. And then everything that I learned with the training that I did. A lot of stuff was so hard. So many things happened so fast and I was just grateful and thankful for everything."

Looking for a new adventure

Billy is a member of the Cook's Ferry Indian Band, a small First Nation located in the Spences Bridge area of B.C., at the entrance to the Fraser Canyon, 300 kilometres northeast of Vancouver.

She works at a daycare in Kamloops and ended up going to Cannes pretty much by accident. With the first four of her own kids grown and out of the house, she was at a point in her life where she wanted to do something new.

That's when she came across a Facebook post by Kim Coltman, founder and owner of a Kamloops-based modelling and talent agency called Fashion Speaks International.

The post was a call for models interested in doing a photo shoot for the annual Red Dress Campaign, which honours and brings awareness to missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people.

"So I signed up for that one and then I saw another post after that for another model call, so I said that I was interested in that one too, not even realizing that it [was] in Cannes, France."

Showcase for Indigenous culture, talent  

The Cannes Indigenous Arts and Fashion Festival was put together by a group of women entrepreneurs, including Coltman, who was a co-producer.

As part of Indigenous Fashion Week, it was meant to showcase the diverse mix of influential Indigenous models, designers, entertainers, film enthusiasts, hair and makeup artists, fashion bloggers and marketing strategists.

Along with the other models, Billy participated in two days of model training workshops and was in front of the camera for a designer photo shoot.

She was also in the spotlight for a fashion show in which she modelled the latest designs by Stacey Mitchell, who is from Akwesasne, a Mohawk community that straddles the Quebec, Ontario and New York State borders.

Billy said she was nervous before stepping onto the catwalk for the first time. But, as she was getting ready to go out, Mitchell told her to just have fun.

"That made it so much better," Billy said.

"I just got up there and the music was playing and I just walked down and I did my poses and everything.

"It seemed like it happened so fast. I just know that I smiled and I tried to look at everyone in the eyes as much as I could to make them feel special and happy."

Scorsese in the seats

Before the show, Billy found out that Academy Award-winning director Martin Scorsese — who was in Cannes for the screening of his new movie Killers of the Flower Moon — would be in the audience.

"That was nerve wracking, but I was like: 'Nope,'" said Billy about not getting distracted by trying to see him in the crowd.

"I was just busy having fun," she said with a laugh.

Coltman said Billy was "amazing" from start to finish in Cannes.

"Everybody fell in love with her, and I knew they would because she's just such a gem," she said.

'Proud to be there' 

Coltman, who is also Indigenous, said having Indigenous culture represented and celebrated in a setting like Cannes was a wonderful experience.

"We couldn't walk through the streets of Cannes without getting stopped and people wanting to take images with our models and our performers, because we had performers there that were in full regalia," she said, adding that some of the pictures might end up in Vogue Magazine.

"It's pretty exciting that we're able to bring our cultures and our traditions to another country and be so well-received."

Billy offered a similar perspective on bringing Indigenous culture to Cannes.

"Just knowing that the area that we were in, and how many people that probably hadn't known much about our culture or what we do or what we look like or anything like that, I felt proud," she said. "I felt proud to be there."

Billy said she could see herself doing more modelling in the future.

"I'm scared to really want it that bad because then if I do, that's all I'm going to think about," she said. "I came home to my life — my family, my babies, my husband and kids. So I want the best of both worlds in that way."