Patterned by culture
SWAIA Native Fashion Week basks in its own haute couture spotlight
Dust off your hats, polish your silver, and shine up those boots: The first-ever Southwestern Association for Indian Arts Native Fashion Week is upon us. Fashionistas can immerse themselves in the iconic world of Indigenous fashion encompassing the work of 17 designers, 120 models, and 20 stylists and makeup artists from across the U.S. and Canada.
This four-day affair, dedicated to the descendants of North America’s original fashion designers, kicks off Thursday, May 2, with a VIP cocktail event at the Governor’s Mansion. On May 3, the action moves to the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture for the All About Indigenous Fashion Symposium, followed by the Native American Art Magazine VIP Fashion Launch Party at La Fonda, all of which provide a warmup for the weekend’s main events — the Native Fashion Show with shopping pop-ups and activated spaces May 4 and 5.
Due to the increasing popularity of the SWAIA fashion show, held annually during August’s Santa Fe Indian Market since 2014, the SWAIA team decided to separate the events to give Native fashion its own week to shine.
Its genesis is an underdog creation story made for TV: The Native fashion show was the brainchild of Amber-dawn Bear Robe (Siksika Nation), curator, art historian, and fashion program director. The first show started with just four designers — Orlando Dugi (Diné), Jamie Okuma (Luiseño/shoshone), Bethany Yellowtail (Crow/northern Cheyenne), and Sho Sho Esquiro (Kaska Dene/ Cree) — along with 20 models, a shoestring budget, and a U-haul for transportation to the Cathedral Park venue. Now just over a decade later, the show has evolved into an event that brings together some of the most prominent fashion and culture decisionmakers in the industry.
From the original foursome, designer Dugi will unveil his newest collection at the show on May 5. Dugi, whose clans are Kinyaa’áanii, Tódích’íinii, Tł’izíłaní, and Tsé deeshgizhníí, has been designing high fashion garments for more than a decade and before that was winning awards for his beadwork and jewelry. Using silk, wool, feathers, gold thread, and crystals, Dugi’s garments are a wearable homage to the world he comes from, yet present as mythical masterpieces that are better suited for a Parisian runway than in the hogan where the designer’s story began.
“Everything made in the present day is considered contemporary,” says Bear Robe. “But this isn’t a buckskin, beads, and regalia show. The only mystique is that there’s a huge mystique around fashion in general, and that’s what the designers in the show do. There’s no limitation on what they can present.”
While every designer naturally brings elements of their particular Indigeneity and life experience to their work, Native/ Indigenous fashion is anything but predictable.
“There is no one way to describe what Native fashion is, because it’s so diverse and beautifully complex,” says Bear Robe. “But the one thing that does tie Indigenous designers together is that Indigenous people are the original, couturier designers of North America. You don’t get any more couture than hunting and gutting a walrus and cleaning its intestines until they’re pristine and using it as a beautiful material to make not only a life-saving garment, but also something that is absolutely stunning.”
Both seasoned as well as emerging designers are featured in this year’s show. Some daily-wear looks will come from such designers as Carrie Wood (Diné), Dehmin Osawamick Cleland (Ojibwe and Odawa from the Wikwemikong reserve of Manitoulin Island), Loren Aragon (Acoma), and Randy Leigh Barton (Diné).
Formal wear pieces will include the work of Penny
Singer (Diné), Himikalas Pamela Baker (Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw), Orlando Dugi, and Lesley Hampton (Anishinaabe).
But categorizing the designers is tricky, given that they are designing their collections specifically for the show. As with any art form, the work of this year’s designers will push the boundaries and defy definitions of style.
Patricia Michaels’ (Taos) new collection will include never-before-seen formal wear inspired by basketry, as well as fresh designs created for staff at Albuquerque’s
Hotel Chaco. Cree/métis actor Tantoo Cardinal is modeling for Michaels and walks the runway at 5:30 p.m. on May 4.
Designers such as Maria Hupfield (a member of the Anishinaabek People belonging to Wasauksing First Nation in Ontario) and Peshawn Bread (Comanche/kiowa/cherokee) will blend their respective backgrounds in performance art and film to the runway.
Meanwhile, Victoria Kakuktinniq (Inuit) is known for bringing traditional Inuit parka artistry into her work. Uva a Qaulluq grounds her fashion in Iñupiat I.litqusiat knowledge and teachings, and the designs of Helen Oro (Plains Cree from Pelican Lake First Nation) incorporates traditional First Nations beadwork techniques into modern accessories and statement pieces.
Many, if not most of the designers also introduce their jewelry designs alongside their garments. Be sure to check out the collaboration between Heather Bouchier (Beardy’s & Okemasis Cree Nation in Saskatchewan Treaty Six Territory) and Indi City co-founder Angel Aubichon (Métis & Cree from Peepeekisis Cree Nation).
While Indigenous clothing designs have existed longer than we can theorize, Indigenous-created fashion as a Western concept is relatively new to most non-native people, who may feel uncertain in this space and carry a healthy hesitation toward cultural appropriation.
Bear Robe says she’s often asked this question. “When it comes to the designers you see on the runways that I produce, they’re making fashion for the masses, they’re not making it just for Native people, unlike one-of-a-kind regalia that’s made for certain ceremony or powwows, or that is for family or people in community,” she says. “Appropriation is taking and picking what you please without understanding the history of concepts behind it. If you’re going to pick and choose what you want without actually understanding, knowing, feeling the pain, the heartache, the joys, whatever that may be, that is appropriation.”