Thinking outside the pot
Loren Aragon
Some artists seem to possess a natural gift for carrying their designs in unexplored directions. They find their most solid footing in the continuation of the creative journey — the neverending pursuit of new ways to express an artistic vision. Loren Aragon is one of these artists — resting on his laurels is not an option.
Aragon is founder and owner of ACONAV, whose name, a combination of “Acoma” and “Navajo,” is an homage to his and his wife’s tribal backgrounds. He is also principal designer for the fashion label, through which he rewrites the Native fashion narrative. His work has cultivated a new appreciation for Native design — couture in particular — among clients the world over, especially those whose fashion philosophies align with the ACONAV brand. In a 2018 Navajo-Hopi
Observer article, Aragon described his work as “cultural designs embodied in timeless elegance while representing an identifiable Native American style.”
Surprisingly, Aragon didn’t initially intend to follow the artist’s path. He graduated from Arizona State University in 2014 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. That explains his penchant for taming notoriously temperamental fabrics, such as silk and leather. These are among the most disagreeable materials where pleating, gathering and applying beads or other ornamentation is the task at hand. And
everything produced under the ACONAV label is made by hand.
The level of perfection required to engineer machines has translated seamlessly into Aragon’s carefully curated collections. There are no rough edges, no wayward threads, no uneven stitches to distract the eye or to compromise the beauty and elegance of any given piece. Collections with names like Empowerment are presented in storms of color and downpours of texture. Creations might resemble a ray of the day’s last sunlight striking the surface of an Acoma vase (a red belt over a black-and-white dress) or rain clouds in late summer swirling into and out of each other above the desert (gowns in purples, grays and ethereal blues made of fabrics so light that they catch the slightest of breezes).
Aragon’s atelier celebrates the omnipresent power of the feminine, with many pieces based on the design of the classic manta — worn by countless generations of Pueblo matriarchs — and embellished with cultural iconography such as parrots, lightning, water and rainbows, or geometric patterns borrowed from the fine-line decorative technique used in both historic and contemporary Acoma pottery. Other pieces drape around the body in shapes reminiscent of the flowing garments worn by Greek goddesses and other heroines of the ancient world. The abundance of fabric used in each ACONAV couture production adds an element of luxury — the feel of silk charmeuse, taffeta, organza or cotton sateen against and about the body is no longer reserved for characters in some fictional epic but is an absolute necessity for the label’s enthusiasts. “Native artists are no longer imprisoned by frugality or want,” says fellow couturier