How Jordan Hyatt Got Her Couture Rvng and Sewed Her Way Out of a Corner

“I wanted the fashion to get me there, not my story,” said Jordan Hyatt, the founder of Canadian fashion label Rvng.

Her 12-year-old label is built around dressing women for their stand-up moment, be it the red carpet, an award or standing in the room they’re finally ready to own.

If the brand’s moniker is pronounced “revenge,” hers is a dish served well dressed and without animosity. It is “about standing up in your moments, about showing up, no matter what,” the designer told WWD.

Having the person she is dressing at the center of the story is crucial to her, so much so that she’d “rather not lead with” her own story.

At a push, she describes herself as “a woman designer,” and continued. “I am a mother, I am someone who loves body, understands body, because I have body.”

Hyatt, who was known as Jordan Stewart until her wedding last year to entrepreneur Richard Hyatt, which resulted in a blended family of 10, started her New York- and Toronto-based brand in 2014 but the road that led her to fashion and couture began long ago — before her lifetime, in fact.

Hailing from a family of Scottish descent filled with women with nimble hands who held the firm belief that “if you can hem a pair of pants, you can put food on the table,” she learned how to sew and even build a garment at home.

Despite a detour via psychology studies at the University of Windsor, her true calling soon took over. Fashion is after all “who you are, not what you do,” Hyatt believes.

Her early career saw her open a fashion boutique in Norfolk, Ontario, an experience she considers “the best training in [her] life,” particularly since “the critique level was astronomical.” Quietly, Hyatt began designing and dropping her own silhouettes into the mix, feeling a thrill every time her customers walked away with one.

When the economy and personal circumstances put paid to this chapter of her life, leaving her with four young children and no safety net, the designer decided on a leap of faith by asking herself one question: if money were no object, what would she do?

Fleshing out what her vision of what clothing should do for women was the answer.

From there, she “sewed [her] way out of a corner,” turning her living room into a workshop and growing Rvng’s couture business client after client, look after look.

With the idea of silhouettes you choose when you need presence, Hyatt parlayed her long-standing experience at garment construction into architectural silhouettes that call for rich textures.

Patterns are draped, drafted and developed on the body, with guidelines basted by hand. Likewise, the embellishments such as beading and embroidery.

Architectures of luxurious fabrics are all well and good, but Hyatt is adamant to give equal weight to what is inside — built-in bras, corsetry and internal strapping. Slippage or strain during extended wear is a big no-no for the designer.

“I’m not the couturier who makes costumes for the runway,” she said. “I want to make dresses you can wear.”

If that sounds like a recipe for global success, Hyatt is adamant not to go mass, although she’s recently expanded the business with the quiet launch of a ready-to-wear resort offering in a low three-figure price range.

“If everybody likes me, then I’m not doing enough,” she joked. “I’m not looking to be universally loved. I want my tribe. I want the people who are like, ‘yes, that’s my dress, that’s me.’”

So far, Hyatt’s tribe includes Jennifer Hudson, Paris Hilton, Avril Lavigne, Caroline Scheufele, Marissa Bode, who wore Rvng at the 2025 Academy Awards, and Helena Christensen, who reached for the brand twice this year, for the Vanity Fair Oscars party and the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.

On top of that, the Canadian Arts and Fashion Awards handed Rvng the Womenswear of the Year award in April.

But Hyatt has her eye on a much bigger room.

Since 2024, the brand has been making inroads in Paris, first showing during its ready-to-wear seasons, most recently at the residence of the Canadian ambassador to France in October, before moving to the couture timing in January.

On July 9, the designer will showcase her fall 2026 couture collection on the runway as an off-schedule show during couture week, at the Palais de Tokyo.

The collection, titled “Transformation,” will play on the contrast of the museum’s raw spaces with dramatic lines.

Velvet gowns will expand to near-monumental scale. Crystal fringe will throw off flashes of cobalt, crimson and amber before disappearing back into shadow. Layers of ombré tulle will seem swept through smoke, ink and saturated color.

For the occasion, Hyatt said she called on her darker streak, playing with black-on-black, taffeta, latex and floor-skimming fringes to extend the silhouette past the body.

The idea here? That Hyatt’s client is not a woman who pleases but someone who exists, insists and persists — and that the best revenge is dressing as though you have nothing left to apologize for.